The Letterbox
by KTwain
Summary: Snooping through Brennan's apartment while she's in the shower, Booth stumbles across a cache of diary-like letters that Brennan has written at crucial points in her life to different people. COMPLETED.
1. She Never Slows Down

**This is a means of catharsis used by many people (myself included in the mental sense. I never actually write them...too onerous) to write letters explaining your life. The Letterbox follows Brennan through the unseen chapters of Squint life they skated past in the show. The chapter titles are from Superchick's song _Stand in the Rain_ which is one of my all time favorites (which you should check out on youtube) since it seemed particularly applicable. I thought about putting the first letter here, but I'm holding off for a chapter. Hope you all enjoy. **

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**The Letterbox

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"I would love to crawl into bed with you," Booth called as Brennan sulkily threw off her covers. He smirked cheekily. "Just crawl right up and touch all that silky soft-"

"Booth," she warned.

"-cotton," he finished innocently. He frowned. "But if I'm not in bed," he chuckled darkly and enunciated it more clearly, "_in bed_, then hell you aren't going to be happy either."

"Why are you here?" groaned Brennan. "It's 2:45 in the _morning_."

"Gotta case," clucked her partner, hitching up his pants.

"So?" she groaned as she shuffled past him as he leaned nonchalantly into the doorway of her bedroom.

_"So_," Booth stressed, "it's in Kentucky."

"It's_ where_?" Brennan screeched from the bathroom, the door already closed between them.

"Kentucky. Brass wants us there at 8."

"We may not make it even if we drive all night." Her tinny voice echoed weirdly around her small but plush apartment. Booth let his feet wander slightly as he meandered towards the couch, contemplating lying down.

"Maybe not at eight," he conceded, "but we've been ordered from the Most High-"

"Are you making a religious reference?" she called through the door.

"Believe it or not I wasn't," Booth shouted back. "I was referring to the FBI."

"I thought that you referred to the government as Big Brother."

"I don't, but some people do, yeah."

"You work for the government."

"_We _work for the government," he corrected.

"And you're a big brother!" she called triumphantly. He rolled his eyes but sprang to his feet guiltily from his slumped position on the arm of the couch at the crash.

"Bones! You okay?"

"Fine," she called in exasperation, and he was immediately at the door. "You can come in." Booth reflected later that his ideas of appropriate and his partner's never did match up. He opened it without thinking and threw up a hand when he realized she was nonchalantly standing in a bra and underwear as if they were sweats.

"Bones! Jesus! Cover yourself or…or…something!" He threw a towel at her. "That would have been better!" She obediently held the towel in front of her, but simply grasped a little bunch of it in between her breasts that Booth noticed with a dry mouth were amply straining to be free of a beautiful….really beautiful….brown bra with blue lace trimming.

"Better?" her voice was hurt and she pouted. "You don't think I'm sexually pleasing?"

"Jesus Bones," was all he could manage; he turned his back resolutely to avoid temptation and his embarrassing cocky belt buckle. In a flash he spun back around. "What happened to your hair!"

"That's the crash," she sulked, holding up a saturated patch. It was congealed together with a thick liquid gel.

"It's my vegan coconut lotion. It sort of fell off the shelf and hit me on the head."

"Et tu, Gilligan?" grinned Booth. She looked at him, face completely unreadable. She decided to ignore it.

"Do you mind if I shower?"

"Bones we'll be late-"

"Or I could get this all over your car," she said sweetly, letting her besmeared hand slap some sticky lotion onto his. He yelped but smelled it.

"Smells really good," he mused. Involuntarily his tongue flicked out as she made a face the way she had when he mentioned Bolomo sparkling wine. His face lit up. "It tastes good too!"

"Of course Booth," she said scathingly. "It's all natural waxes and scents. It's very simply beeswax, honey, coconut milk-" she looked as if she could list the entire bottle of fine print. Booth hastily forestalled her with a hand.

"Sure. Yeah. Shower. Sounds good."

"I'll only be a minute." She turned on her heel and dropped the towel as if she forgot she was holding it to grab another clump of hair. "Or two…" she sighed. Booth tripped getting out of the bathroom, swinging the door shut so fast he almost cracked his own skull as he watched her absently unhook the back clasp of her bra, still facing away. The frame rattled with the force of his shock. He could have sworn he heard low laughter.

He sighed as he heard the shower head turn on. This could take a while. Trying to ignore the thought of her naked body beneath steaming spray, Booth began to troll through the little artifacts she kept on her shelves, gazing at them one by one.

_Weird…gross… creepy…why does this little fat dude only have one ball…_Booth clumsily handled them, trying to scrutinize with more detail. _This is a nice vase. Too bad it smells like the stacks at college where the nerds hooked up. Oh, I actually like the sparkly mirrors on this…thing…is that a goat's head coming out of its-what the…_He hastily set down the statuette and moved to the other side of the room where her books, music and other more recognizable household amenities lay neatly in their places. Some had dust coating the tops, a testament to her extreme work hours and her non-existent leisure life.

_Nice picture_, he mused as he gazed at the back of one of her own books. His fingers moved on. _Cute. Looks like Russ' girls made this. Parker's baseball he signed for her like a pro…this is nice…_ Booth realized he had been inadvertently running his FBI ID badge over some of the less breakable items as if scanning them for a store. He smiled. _Beep. Hideous ash-tray full of car keys. $4.95. Beep. Red coaster with a…cat? Pony?….$12.95. Beep. Shoebox collaged with magazine cutouts. $10.00. _

"Shit," swore Booth as his loosely held ID badge slipped through his fingers and _into_ the shoebox. He hadn't noticed it had a slit cut into the top like a piggy bank. Unfortunately, as he quickly picked it up (it was light…full of papers and his plastic card rustling about the sides as he shook it), to look for another opening. No dice. She- or a friend – had paper mached the lid and sides together long ago. Booth recognized newspaper clippings from the early 90s. It wasn't her usual M.O. either. The box was almost pretty – covered in sunsets and script and song lyrics.

He impatiently turned the box upside down, peering into the slit first to see what was inside. It looked like a bunch of letters. Just envelopes with titles he couldn't read in the half shadows of late night fluorescents. He shook the box viciously, hearing his key card rattle about, turning every which way but the right way to jostle itself out of the hole in the top.

"Shit," he muttered again. "I _need_ that." He glanced warily at the bathroom door. The water was still running and if he strained his ears, he could hear his partner (friend/love of his life) singing softly under her breath, self-conscious he was in the other room, but so obviously ingrained in her customs she couldn't abstain.

There was only one option. He'd have to open the box. Booth thought it over, placing it quickly on the coffee table and squinting hard as it as if – like in _Harry Potter_ – that might help accomplish the task with no additional thought or effort on his part. _Just look in the mirror and it shall appear_, he chanted. The box just sat there.

"Damn, damn, damn," grumbled Booth, fishing out a pocket knife. He hesitated. Through the top or along one side? Top was noticeable, he concluded. But the sides would take more cutting…He grinned, suddenly relieved. He would just slice along the seams at the bottom and pry it gently open then fold it back closed and sit it upright and no one would be the wiser. Brilliant.

With a whistle of self-congratulations he swiftly curtailed in a discordant note lest she hear, he gently slipped his knife into the soft bottom of the cardboard. It went through like butter; he should have clued in then but continued gently sawing. With an exclamation of surprise, Booth swore more floridly when he realized there was no top of the shoebox; she had turned it upside down and papered over the non existent bottom. The entire box bottom, held over the coffee table, became a gaping hole as letters rained out. At first inundated with blind panic, Booth was immediately intrigued by how many letters fell out. At least 20. _Who on earth is she writing to?_ He wondered. He squeaked when he realized the shower head hadn't been running for a while. He frantically glanced about as he snatched up his key card to find a place to put the letters.

"Bones?"

"Yeah? I'm almost done, don't worry."

"Not worried!" Booth called back, his voice flooded with panic that clearly said otherwise. Luckily she didn't pick up on things like that. "Take your time," he hoarsely added. Swearing, he scooped them all up in a pile and stacked them fiercely against the table. He heard the door handle turn and stuffed them hurriedly in his jacket pocket next to his heart. Frightened more than in any war to be caught snooping through her stuff, Booth kicked the box, which flattened under one vicious squash (hell it was all ruined anyway) under the couch.

"You ready to go?" she asked brightly. She was toweling her hair dry. Booth's throat was so tight he couldn't speak as she expertly braided her hair and shrugged into her coat. He was still frozen on the couch when she tossed him his keys. He missed the catch.

"Come on," she said impatiently, gesturing towards the door with her head. "Let's go. Don't worry," she teased incorrectly interpreting his tenseness. "I won't fall asleep; I won't be cruel. We can listen to your stations and yes I washed all the lotion out."

"That's good," he choked as he held the door for her, his eyes scanning the apartment frantically as a means of disposal for the letters without proving what he had done. No chance. After this case he would have to glue the box back together and put them back. _Put. Them. Back_. His mental voice dictated strictly. He swallowed.

"Et Tu, Gilligan," Bones suddenly laughed. "Oh, I see the humor now."


	2. She Doesn't Know Why

**I am so overawed with the PHENOMENAL response I got for the first chapter! It wasn't even enough to really review on, but damn I was impressed at the amount of story alerts I got! Thank you Thank you! So as a reward, here's chapter two. I know everyone is wondering, but no B&B aren't together in this fic. On another note, I don't like writing/solving the new drama of Hannah/Booth/Brennan screwy little triangle. So think of this in season 5 or before – at whatever time you please – before Hannah and before the time jump. I don't want to have to navigate Booth's stupid emotional Hannah issues the way I do in my other fic. (Review, review)**

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"Hey, Bones!" Booth waved her over and she came at the trot in her blue jump suit, already elbow deep in dead person muck. Or horse poop.

"Hay," she beamed, "is for horses!" Booth grimaced in response as he squinted around the beautiful white picket fence farm. The body hadn't been found for months because different bones had been tied to each jump out in the jumping arena and no one had noticed the yellow-white femurs, ribs and ulnas attached to the sand drenched white jumping poles and intense grand prix water jumps. It was only when a horse threw a rider over a jump and she had landed on the skull among the flower box did they call the FBI. No one knew how long the bones had been out there. Or who they were.

"How much longer do you need Bones? It's getting kinda late."

"If you had followed by instructions and taken Route 1 out of DC we wouldn't have gotten lost."

"I was taking a faster way."

"Faster to getting lost," she agreed mulishly. He ground his teeth and squinted in the sunset. In any other scenario he would have relished being on a breezy farm in the sunset, but it was too hot for that. Sweat was trickling down under his collar. It was May, for God's sake, _May_.

"I'm starving," Booth complained, glad that at least there wasn't any nasty accompanying smell with the body like usual.

"You can't rush science," she sniffed primly as she attempted to spin around, gloves in the air as if precious as jewels. She twisted a little too far and winced, wilting like a felled tree as Booth caught her under her armpits, her gloved hands still outstretched foolishly like a wooden toy. Booth realized her neck against his own was soaked with sweat. He bit the corner of his lip to realize he almost liked the scent. It smelled like sex and writhing passion. He gently helped his partner sit on a split pole that had been tossed out of the jumping arena.

"Easy there, you all right?"

"I think," she gritted her teeth, "I twisted my ankle."

"Sprained it?" Booth asked in genuine concern as Brennan gestured towards her manure laden boot.

"Can you get that off?" Booth looked at her, clapped a hand to her shoulder and shook his head with a huge grin.

"You're not that badly injured Bones, no dice. Take it off yourself."

"But my crime scene," she whined.

"They can handle bagging bones and particulates," Booth said firmly, "We've been out here for a while."

"Fine," she huffed, and tugged off first one boot, then gingerly laid her ankle across one knee. Booth had been in sports long enough to know when an athlete was trying to either make a bigger deal out of an injury, or trying to hide the injury out of a lust for the game. Brennan was trying to downplay it, moving with a slow sureness and a tightness of mouth that didn't quite match her trembling fingers and stiff joints. Booth at least took pity to undo the laces and stood back as she pulled the boot off excruciatingly slowly.

"Shhhht," hissed Booth in sympathy; Brennan's ugly sweat soaked sock was already doubled twice the size.

"If you get the first aid kit from your car," she said reasonably, "I can bandage it up and get back into the field."

"Why don't you just call it a day, huh?" Booth asked gently. "You've been up since 2:45. It's a long time, trust me, I'm feeling it."

"Not even twenty four hours," she scoffed. Booth shook his head with a wry grin.

"Let's just get you to the car." Half walking, half hobbling, as Brennan adamantly refused to be carried on the grounds that it was preposterous, they moved forward glacially. Brennan leaned heavily against his jacket.

"Only a few more feet," he promised her.

"Why are you crinkling?" she wrinkled her nose with the question as he froze, remembering the letters he hadn't moved from his breast pocket all day.

"Newspaper," he lied, and helped her into the front seat. He dropped her off at the room across from his in the hotel and shut the door with shaking hands, shrugging out of his coat and taking the letters out. They were a little crinkled, but none worse for the wear. He took them quickly to the dresser drawer in the nightstand and stuffed them in next to the Bible they put in all hotels – at least in Kentucky. He seriously needed to fix that box.

But before he could slide the door all the way shut, a title addressed on one of the envelopes caught his eye.

It read, very simply: _Letter to a soldier_

He snatched up that letter and looked at the others. All were addressed similarly. Some were easy to guess whom they were addressed to. He was obviously the soldier. _Letter to a prodigy_ must be for Zack. Yet there were letters he had never thought of: _letter to a comrade, letter to a first love, letter to a family, letter to a sister_. He carefully stacked them together again, wondering what this could be about. He left _letter to a soldier_ out as he ducked into the bathroom to shower.

The entire time he stood under the jet stream of water, Booth couldn't get the letter out of his mind. It danced before his eyes, even when they were scrunched shut, branded beneath his eyelids, floating orange on a purple screen: _letter to a soldier_. He tried to imagine when Brennan would have written him a letter. He frowned. He saw her every day; when on earth had they been far apart enough to write to each other? He sighed then frowned some more, a deeper creasing of his lined but handsome face. Were they a list of regrets? The other letter had been to Zack…who he assumed was Zack. The Prodigy. Who else could it mean?

Booth realized he was muttering angrily; that woman was driving him insane and she wasn't even nearby. He debated whether or not to open the letter. _No_, his mind said firmly, warmly, savagely. He protected and respected her. If he was honest with himself, he loved her. He wouldn't just go around and read her diary.

_It's addressed to me_, he argued with himself. _No_, said his vehement mind again. Booth stretched out on the bed with a towel around his waist and propped against the pillows. Even as his mind railed what a stupid thing he was doing, he was slowly opening the sealed envelope. He had known, if he was not being terribly ornery, that the moment he had seen the envelope he would open it. He had to know. He had to know what secrets she was keeping from him when he wasn't keeping any from her.

_Dear Booth_,

Booth smiled, triumphant that he had guessed correctly. He settled down more fully to read, propping open the pages on his stomach. The letter was pages long, full of tiny cramped handwriting that was smeared all over by what looked to be the side of her hand. He frowned. That was odd. She never smeared anything. He stopped griping to read. His eyes flickered at the date then widened. This was from a while ago…almost three years.

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_May 15__th__, 2008_

_Dear Booth,_

_It's been almost three days, and I still can't bring myself to believe the obvious cold reality. I saw you get shot. I saw you die. I heard the doctors tell me quietly, holding my cold hands in the waiting room on May the 12__th__, a date forever etched into my memory, that you didn't make it. That you didn't make what? I wanted to ask. The cut? The team? But no…you didn't make life. That you had died, that there was this frenetic sense of injustice that you were cut from life's team. _

Booth realized he was panting in terror. He had never ever spoken to Brennan about what she had been through for the days she thought he was dead. The closest she had ever come to shy acknowledgment of her anguish was when she had burst in on him in the tub.

"I took a bullet for you!" he had bellowed. And eyes swimming and voice squeaky she retorted,

"Once! And that only goes so far!" He hadn't understood what she had meant at the time. He did now. His eyes hungrily resumed reading. She wrote beautifully, even devastated, as he realized now the ink was smudged not from her hand, but from her tears.

_I don't truly believe in souls, but I know that you do. So perhaps if there is a sense of peace in death, even if it is just in your coffin, I hope you find it. I know you deserve it, though you believe in your heart you may not. You don't say these things, but I know you have this…vendetta. This redemption fallacy that swirls through your brain at the sense of 'keeping cosmic score.' I think you've evened it out enough. If your selflessness…_

Booth was surprised how well she knew him; the things she wrote about his views he had never expressed well enough aloud but there they were, drying in the ink, perfect to a tee.

_ Why did you do it?_

Her pen was angry now, slashing across the page, the rage infusing her careful collected sorrow.

_Why did you step in front of me? That bullet was meant for me, but she's not a very good shot. Wasn't. I shot her too. I know you'd frown on my sense of glorified vindictiveness, but I confess I derived great pleasure from killing her. But the angle of trajectory was wrong. If you hadn't been such an idiot, jumping in my way like a misogynistic guardian angel-_

Booth laughed a strangled little sound. A misogynistic guardian angel. That was how she saw him. Had seen him.

_-that bullet wouldn't have pierced my heart. It would have been lower. It would have lodged somewhere in one of my intestines. A painful and fatal wound to be sure – if we were living a hundred years ago. Although I would have suffered, my chances of survival would have been much higher than yours are. Were. _

_ I still don't know why you did it. But I can hear your voice in my head as I sit alone now. You're bickering, squawking at me to turn a light on, but I prefer to write this in the dark…so I don't lose what modicum of control I have. You also tell me that you did it because you were my partner. Partners share. That's what you told me. _

_ I wonder if this is what people mean by ghosts. Does it count if I know you are dead, and cannot see you, but still clearly hear you? Am I mad? Does this make me insane? The only thing I can be sure of is regret. Regret for this letter I'll never read. You'll never read. Regret for your bullheaded actions that cost you your life as you died in my arms. Regret that I shut you out but also regret that I let you so far in. _

Booth rubbed his face, setting the letter down in order to get dressed. He swallowed, trying to process it. Snippets wound through his head, _dying in her arms, regret for letting him in, ghosts and faith and suffering alone. _He took a shuddering, cleansing breath as he pulled a shirt over his head and lay back down to read.

_I am glad now, in retrospect, you know so little about me_. Booth ground his teeth. Damn it. _But in some ways, you know more than most. You were there through some of the hardest parts of my life. You were there for my mother's burial, for my father's reappearance, for his trial, for Russ' stubborn reunion_. Booth almost smiled at her one sided insights into who in her family was stubborn. His smile fell shakenly off his face at the next line. _But you aren't here tonight, on possibly one of the worst nights of my life. Tomorrow is your funeral and tomorrow I have to accept reality. That there is no more of us. Of French fries, of bickering about sex, of young Dr. Sweets. I can't bear to look at Cam, or the way Angela looks at me. I've already looked for alternative work. There's an opening in Alaska. It's better there; less people, less noise, less caring. I would say this is the worst night of my life, but that would mean admitting things I'm not sure I understand._

He had an inkling now, why she had decked him at his funeral. He had been outraged and angry, but he knew that that was a tenth of what she must have felt after this night's silent, traumatic vigil. He almost couldn't believe his death could have prompted her to move to a self imposed exile in a glacial wasteland, but it also didn't surprise him she couldn't handle the pity. If she had left, she would have died. He wanted to shake her all over. She was killing herself for him; people were the only thing that were worth it. Worth life. That was why he had jumped without thinking.

_I can tell you now because it's over…about the letter you'll never read from the Gravedigger. About how I sometimes just wanted to cry on cases, but was so afraid you'd think I was weak. How I wanted you to like me because you were everything I wished I was: brave, empathetic, understanding and loyal. I'm hot tempered and flighty, terrible with people and am always alone. You don't see it, but you're the only one I never feel lonely around. Most of the time I want to be alone because when I'm by myself, I feel less like an anomaly. Less like a different kind of person. Less like a freak. _

_I'm sorry but I cannot write this any longer. I'm finished now, and so are you. As I seal you up in this envelope and drop you into my letterbox, I will not go to your funeral. I will wrap up my life and walk away. I will never allow myself to think of you again. Please believe it's not out of hatred, but out of love. Like the mother who killed her daughter out of love. You need to be gone, and as long as I'm here, you never will be. So I'm leaving, and I refuse to go dress up in an itchy black dress when there is still a serial killer on the loose bigger than you and your selfish murder. _

_Seeley Booth, you don't even know who I am; you always called me Bones. But the truth is, is I know that woman 'Bones' more than I know myself. How did you do that? How did you make me different? I hate you for it, I think. Maybe I could have loved you if you stayed; everyone is always leaving you know. And I'm sick of it. _

_Goodbye. You will be missed. _

"_Bones"_

Booth had never felt like crying more in his life.


	3. But She Knows That When She's All Alone

**Thanks guys for giving this story a chance! Looks like I stumbled on something good ;) Review. Try the letters at home...whichever...or both**

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_No more_, he swore to himself, clenching and unclenching his hands as he paced beside his partner. Everything had changed; she was unaware of it, but he felt as if the silencer had been taken off of a gun. Everything she said was hyper-charged with the overlaid tension and awareness Booth now carried. He criticized every one of her actions. Was she lonely all the time? Did she ache for her family? Did he really make her feel less that way?

Booth realized he was scaring her when she threw a cube of ice at his head as he asked for the third time if she needed anything.

"Are you sure nothing is wrong Booth?" she asked in genuine concern. "I'm _fine_. It's just a sprain. Actually I'd like to be in the field but _someone_," and she glared at him, "seems to have removed all of my clearance passes and modes of transportation.

"You shouldn't walk on that ankle," he snapped right back and then stopped, mouth open, wondering if he was always this mean to her. Did he really always vent his feelings to her? Knowing how he affected…had affected at least… Booth swallowed, running his fingers through his hair. He shoved his hands into his jean pockets. "You know, you're right. There's no point about being down here if you can't get around. I'll bring you the lab work and a computer. And if you need to go anywhere, hell Bones I'll drive you there myself."

"No," she said, mulishly sticking her chin out in a way that usually drove him mad, but now was actually kind of adorable.

"No?" he asked, confused. "Is there something else you want? You hungry? I can get you some food!"

"Booth, could you please just SIT DOWN_,_" she ordered, pointing to a chair. Her face became compassionate. "Did something happen?"

"Happen?" he choked nervously. "No. Nothing I can think of." She crinkled up her face in confusion, sucking on an ice cube before running another one down the back of her neck. Booth jerked to his feet like she was his marionette master so he could grab an ice cube to wet his suddenly parched mouth.

"I don't want to just sit here and do lab work," she complained with a lopsided smile. "I want to go out in the field with you and do what…" she trailed off self consciously, peeling at a cuticle. "…Do what we always do." She looked shyly up between a stray lock of hair that had fallen in front of impossibly blue eyes. Booth had to stand and snag another piece of ice and cross his legs when he sat back down.

"Bones," he started heavily, "you're injured."

"You're being ridiculous Booth," she snapped suddenly, sweet shy thing gone in a blink and ornery anthropologist resurfacing.

"I'm trying to protect you."

"From what?" she gesticulated cynically. "Horse manure? This is a sprain. It's not bad if we tape it up. I've been more seriously injured on a case than this. You are being completely illogical."

"Did you mean it?" Booth blurted, his stupid heart blundering. "When you said you loved me?" Her face went completely blank.

"When did I say that?" she asked carefully.

"You love me right?"

"Booth…" she looked pained.

"As a friend," he hastily put in and her face immediately cleared as if he had wiped it clean of mud.

"Oh, of _course_." She laughed suddenly. "You scared me Booth! I didn't remember ever saying-" she stopped, curtailing her thoughts to herself. She was unreadable even to Booth's perceptiveness. He thought he knew her through and through and realized after that soul shaking letter he had read last night, he hardly knew her at all. His mind immediately flew to the other stashed letters. He _could_ know her better…

_No. Absolutely not. You disgusting self-serving hypocrite. What you're doing is _wrong_. _

_Only if I find others addressed to me,_ he answered himself, qualifying his indiscretions. It was a pitiful excuse and he knew it.

"Bones…" he began awkwardly. "I just don't want to see you in pain."

Her face went blank again as recognition seemed to dawn.

"Oh, I see."

"You do?" he asked hurriedly. She nodded in resignation.

"This has to do with…" she paused awkwardly but looked him straight in the eyes. "With what you said outside the Lincoln Memorial. When you wanted to be _in love_ with me, isn't it?"

"What?" Booth was thrown and hurt she thought him so weak to stoop to that level. "No! Believe it or not Bones, not everything I do is about you." His voice was cruel and biting in his defensiveness.

She stared at him, shocked. She couldn't even speak, only gaped her mouth open and closed as if searching for words. Feeling a sense of vindictive pleasure for winning the argument he so often lost, Booth pushed to his feet.

"Just rest," he mocked. "Study your horse poop. Stay where you belong." He felt his face split into a selfish and self righteous smile as she jumped to her feet in outrage.

"Did you just tell me to _stay in the kitchen!_" she spat.

"Its equivalent," he allowed. She didn't throw a handful of ice this time; she chucked the entire bucket at his head.

"God, you can be such a bastard," she spat. She circled the room quickly, hobbling a little, but relatively steady. "Look at me! The lame filly can be put through her paces! I'm not as broken as you seem to think!" Booth swallowed; without intending – as so often happened with her – she hit the crux of the issue guilelessly. He glared at her, out of words and feeling slightly sick, but too proud to say anything else. She pushed him suddenly.

"Just get out," she hissed. Then she too, deflated. "I'm tired. I need Advil or a beer. I'm sorry I overreacted." Booth could hardly open his mouth before she slammed the door in his face.

He backed three paces – the time it took to back the width of the hallway- before his back hit his own hotel door. He scrabbled for the handle and shoved it open, still reeling. He alternated in quick hot flashes with self righteous indignation and despondent self loathing. _What had he done?_

_It's the letter, _his voice snidely told him, _it's complicated everything._ Booth realized that he was right. He threw himself on his bed, groaning, trying to think up a way to make up for his completely asinine behavior. One minute he was treating her like a breakable four year old incapable of anything, and then like a suburban 50s housewife; no wonder she thought him insane. But the ribbing about his true feelings for her…that had been low on her side.

Feeling embittered, Booth scrubbed his face with both hands groaning. His knuckles scraped the nightstand and without consciously thinking he dipped a hand into the drawer and pulled out the first one his fingers came in contact with. It was therapeutic, to realize he could literally dip his hand so easily into her thoughts when all of his were reeling. The handwriting on the outside, the addressee, was very different from the letter he had just read.

Booth swallowed at his audacity. It was one thing to read a letter to a soldier, and very different to read this one. He unfurled the paper inside; he had to smile a little though. It was tie-dyed stationary with a teenager's scrawl. The envelope fluttered to the floor. The wording _Letter to a Mother_ landed face up.

Booth's hands were trembling. He had to forcibly smooth the sheet against his leg to get it to lie flat, and the words to stop bouncing.

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_September 11__th__, 1991_ Booth's eyes snagged on the date, his heart hurting to realize that a decade later…he sighed heavily and continued to the salutation.

_Dear Mom,_

_I miss you. I miss the way you used to smell like roses and ink from keeping the books and gardening at the same time. I miss the way you used to yell at Russ while Dad and I laughed under the windowsill, both knowing he was taking the fall for something I'd done. I miss your pretty black ring and your dolphin belt buckle I borrowed without asking. I miss…_

_ I miss home. But I can never go home again. _

_ They tell me to build a new family, to start fresh. But all I can think about is when _we_ were a family, when we were perfect and nobody died, and nobody left and no one was angry and bitter and cruel. When Russ and I were close, and you two loved each other. The people in the Foster System tell me to make friends with my new families, but they are not always good people. And I think wanting foster kids says something about how broken their own families are, needing to fill the space where something or someone has gone missing. Maybe the love in their marriage is gone, and as foster kids we're supposed to rekindle it. Or maybe their children have left the nest, and we're supposed to ease the transition. But the worst is when their children have gone: died or disappeared, and the way they look at us then is the worst. They want us to fill a hole and they stare at you, searching for their son or daughter inside every one of your actions. And the death and decay of all of their families rots through the house and sneaks inside your brain until you never want to go "home" again._

Booth felt as if Brennan, this young Brennan, had taken a sledgehammer to his rib cage, leaving him all splintered inside. He hadn't realized she was so perceptive. _Was_ being the key word. Her next thoughts tugged at his attention. Her transition was abrupt, the way teenagers always were. Booth privately hoped Parker would outgrow that. Her words though, took the little breath hurting in his lungs, and dissolved it. Booth felt the room spinning as he clutched the bed, reading her sudden anguish.

_If pages could scream, I would scream _I'm lonely_. I would scream _Don't leave me_. I would scream _Please help me_. But out loud…out loud I can barely whisper that scream. I can't even say Polo. Don't you see? See that who I was is barely here – right here – dying in the lettering, as she takes over. Temperance. That awful name you gave me when I used to just be Tempe. When dad used to hug me and spin me around and you and I would play with microscopes and peel flower petals for lab slides. But I can't be her anymore. Tempe is fleeing; it hurts too much to build a new family when everyone is always leaving…even myself. They told me tonight at dinner that they were giving me up. Giving me back. And I'd be moving my life again. That's three. Three other families._

_ I couldn't even speak. I couldn't even whisper. I just sat there mutely and nodded. Because this girl is gone. Tempe - the girl I was - she's being crowded out by something inside of me. I feel like I'm...I'm...broken. Like something inside of me that used to be whole got a crack, which slowly opened until I snapped beyond repair. I'm shyer. I'm less sure of myself. I never feel like smiling. I never feel hungry. I never feel anything._

_Mom, I'm dying. And you're killing me. _

_Are you even there? Are you alive? If I die, who will bury me? Where will I go? I'm not unintelligent, I understand the concept of sentient life. But I'm scared. Did you leave? Were you killed? Did you understand what would happen to our family?_

Her unanswered questions screamed through the pages, 18 years late.

_I used to think we were lucky; we weren't the kind of family that bad things happened to. We weren't the kind of people who got hurt. _

Booth paused; this girl, this teenage girl whose thoughts were all over the place, streaming consciousness without rhyme or reason, the un-compartmentalized Temperance Brennan. The warm, living, scared and bitter Temperance Brennan. The hybrid between the end of an age: between Tempe and someone older, but also someone colder. He ached just to hold her.

_But at the same time, I am Temperance. I miss that girl but perhaps it's a nostalgic irrationality for childhood. I don't know if perhaps this is just part of growing up; but I don't think so. I wish I didn't know how to find the loneliest roads home to avoid people. I wish I didn't know how to sneak into the house, which parts of the stairs to use, when I didn't want my foster siblings to jeer at me. I wish I didn't know what it means to walk home in the well lit streets out of fear I might be beaten up…again. I wish I didn't know what makeup best cover black eyes, or how to pop my own nose back into place, or how to teach myself the homework because teachers don't want to waste time on broken kids. I wish I didn't know that you have to lock your bedroom doors at night and if there is no lock, push furniture in front, because some people like to watch you sleep. _

Booth found he was shaking, the paper rattling between his fingers with anger and pain, the headache pounding between his eyes as her words pounded into his heart.

_ I don't know if these are things everyone learns as they grow up, or if I'm being melodramatic. I wish I could ask, but I don't know who to go to. So I suppose this is goodbye: my last goodbye to you, and yours to me. I love you. Loved you. _

_ Goodbye forever,_

_ Tempe_

_I think I'm finally gone, because you took me with you. _

Booth felt his cheeks twitching involuntarily as if his face was working itself up to cry without his permission. He had just stared not ten minutes before as Brennan was unable to vocalize anything; how long had it been since this girl Tempe, had disappeared? How long even before now had the young woman Temperance, left? When did the transition between cynical, reserved Temperance become icy, obtuse, brilliant Brennan? And like she had said in the last letter…when had she become his Bones? Was it gradual, like this letter observed? Was it rife with the same panic that was present here? Did she loathe him for changing her? She confessed she did…but she also had that confusing close with 'I could have loved you.'

Booth swallowed. He looked at the clock; it was only 8 pm. Brennan was cranky; she had done relatively little all day. Guiltily, Booth dug out the files he had and grabbed two beers from his mini bar. His knock was hesitant but she opened it as abruptly as if she had been standing, waiting for him to return.

"Hi," he said quietly.

"Hi," she returned, staring at the floor.

"Look, I was…I was outta line. I brought you beer." He shook a little bottle. "And Advil."

"What are those?" asked Brennan suspiciously. Booth sighed and handed his handful over.

"The case files. If you want, we can lay on the bed and look them over with room service."

"You just want to get me in bed," she teased lightly. But the seriousness beneath her tone pricked at him. Instead of guarding himself with one of the several flippant responses that sprung to mind, Booth looked at her seriously.

"Don't do that," he said softly. "Don't make fun of who I used to be." She was very quiet as she let him brush past her, her soft flushed skin heating the air noticeably as she blushed.

"Used to be?" she teased again, but her tone had fallen flat, and instead of amusing she came off again as serious. She didn't correct herself.

"Growing up sucks," he gave her a crooked grin. He couldn't help but adding, "especially since I don't even know if I'm doing it right, and I'm too afraid to ask anyone." He gave her a tight smile; her face had frozen, head canted. She shook it off and climbed next to him into the bed, pillowing her face into his arm without reserve, reaching for a case file, and letting him pop the cap of her beer with the key ring he kept in his pocket.

She didn't remember; the words didn't ring any alarms, except for subconscious ones, recognizing similarity. But it had, after all, been more than 15 years ago.

"I used to be the kind of girl," she said quietly, "who thought she had a normal life." Booth nodded seriously, letting his eyes seemingly focus on the text while watching her out of the corner of one. He finished her half trained thought as her pristine white skin wrinkled as she tried to remember the rest of her point.

"One where no one got hurt," he guessed. She looked at him and cracked a wry grin before he chuckled in response. She giggled as he poked her, the words still lingering as her bandaged ankle a symbol for the laughter that cascaded between them.

They laughed until they cried.


	4. Feels Like It's All Coming Down

**This got a little long, but it was too sweet to pass up. I know it's really cliché that I love horses, but it's true. Ergo the Kentucky farm. Review! I've been touched by them all.**

* * *

He hated that goddamn screwdriver. It was burning him. The malicious grin on Gallagher's face swam before him as he gritted his teeth, determined not to scream as it was pressed into his flesh until he smelled that burning goat smell that sometimes came out of his car's heating system.

"We need a bigger driver," mused the Brit, glancing sardonically at Gallagher, and Booth's eyes widened, gaping at the comically enormous six foot screwdriver he heaved white hot out of an inferno. Booth couldn't help but to scream as the man lay it against him, burning all along one side of his flesh, reddening his arms and bursting the sweat from his skin. He heard a garbled, strange voice that he thought was his own except it sounded so different.

"Geroff. Ger_uff_. Geteroff. Get. OFF!" Booth felt his entire body seize as he was pushed over the edge of the floor and woke with a start, realizing it had been a ludicrously florid but morbid dream.

"You are so hot," complained Brennan. Her creamy skin was flushed pink all down one arm and a leg encased in soft pants was drenched with sweat. Half of her hair was damp where her face had been nestled flush against him all night. Booth stared down at his own skin, noticing its red color where he and Brennan had slept tightly against each other, neither moving for hours. He groaned. He was stiff. Brennan winced as she uncurled her fingers from the little fists that were still next to his chest where she had been trying to shake him awake. Booth grabbed her wrists, surprised.

"Bones!" he stared down at her palm, which was littered with little purple crescents. It took him only a fraction of a second to realize they were deeply etched nail marks of her clenching her hands together for hours.

"What?" she snatched them back, tucking her hair back self-consciously. Booth realized with a lopsided little grin they had slept together all night and he was concerned about her nail marks; his face sobered.

"Did you have a nightmare?"

"None that I can remember," she shrugged. "I do remember that I thought I was on fire; that's what woke me."

Booth chuckled, "Something similar just happened to me."

"You are so _hot_," she griped again, forcing her hair into a sloppy bun he had never seen before; her hair at the lab was always impeccable.

"Thank you," he beamed obscenely before she rolled her eyes.

"Go take a shower. We have to work today." Booth obediently rolled to the floor and strode away. He laughed when Brennan finally caught on and screeched, _"in your own shower Booth!"_ He waved as he shut the door with a firm:

"Half an hour," time limit.

* * *

"I am thoroughly enjoying myself," Brennan called laughingly across the distance between them. Booth tensed involuntarily as the horse beneath him swiveled his ears in the direction of Brennan's beautiful alto voice.

"Nice puppy," he said in a mutter, exaggeratedly patting the neck. The horse's ears were not interested in his voice. Typical. Brennan could charm the pants off somebody who really should be wearing a diaper given how much he pooped.

Although Booth liked animals, horses were…big. It wasn't that he was scared - but this wasn't a car. And riding something this big when the modicum of control he could have was based on body language made him nervous when his own was currently so screwy. What a living nightmare. He had a brief flash of fear that he would spook the horse and Brennan would have to romantically gallop after him and save the day. His face flushed in embarrassment as he resolved not to do anything that foolish and gripped his legs a little more firmly. His horse snorted in surprise and trotted forward a couple paces.

"Crap," he murmured as he sawed on the reins to bring him back to the slow amble Booth was comfortable with.

"No, come on Booth!" laughed Brennan, taking to the art of formulaic English horse back riding with an ease that set Booth's teeth on jealous edge. She brought her horse to a trot, which Booth's horse followed, and then increased to a canter. Booth whimpered involuntarily at the huge rocking motion that seemed much faster than any motorcycle though he knew– as his partner would say – he was being illogical. _Just stay on, just stay on. Don't panic. Follow Bones. Let her steer. Just trust her if you can't trust the horse. _Booth chanted his little mantra to himself as his hands curled around the reins, gripping big chunks of mane. He noticed strands of it floating away as Brennan swiped one off of her face.

"Oops!" he called, trying to suffuse some measure of her inherent joy into his own voice so as not to disappoint her.

"Don't worry about it," she informed him. "Horse manes aren't like people's heads. The nerve endings are not nearly as numerous."

"So you're saying I can pull out this guy's hair until kingdom come?"

"It would be impractical but…" Brennan gave her signature unsure grin she wore when she was trying particularly hard to make a joke. Booth gave it to her and laughed. The more he watched her – her titan hair flowing in the breeze, her soft elbows moving with the flow, her perfect legs not swinging about and her breasts…Booth realized he was enjoying the ride much more than his initial reaction. Together they raced across the huge acreage of green fields, the grass so smooth and green, Booth marveled at the emerald color matching the azure sky. It seemed so surreal he found himself grinning just at the sheer majesty of a moment.

"Maybe you should just ride a horse around your crime scene," he deadpanned.

"That would be ludicrous Booth, as it would contaminate-" her eyes caught his carefully neutral expression. "Oh," she laughed a little. "You are being facetious." Booth clapped his hands together wiping his smug smile away with palm down one jaw.

"Yeah."

"I don't know," mused Brennan. "I may seriously contemplate getting a horse just for the pleasure of one."

"Do you want to go out to dinner?" Booth quickly asked, trying to distract that train of thought before it could take root.

"Sure," she grinned with a shy smile Booth recognized whenever he disconcerted her with his attentions. He stepped it up a notch and hopped down from his horse and then held both hands out to her mockingly, inviting her to jump into his arms. She stared at him appraisingly a moment before quickly swinging her leg (the wrong way) over the horse's neck and flinging herself down. Booth, not expecting her to comply, grunted and felt his knees buckle as her full five foot nine frame slammed into his six foot two one.

They fell to the grass in a soft whoosh of limbs, tangled deliciously together as Booth fought to draw breath, his head seeing stars but her hands quickly roving over it protectively.

"Booth! Booth, I'm so sorry I-"

Booth started laughing hysterically; watching her bounce upon his distended diaphragm made him laugh all the harder. He watched her jostle up and down as she pretended to pout.

"It's not funny!"

"You should be a linebacker Bones," he groaned, still wiping his eyes as he attempted to stand. She reluctantly cracked a grin as she hauled him to his feet.

"You're covered in grass stains," she observed as she balanced on one leg, her injured ankle bulky under her slim, straight leg jeans. Booth twisted a hand up behind his back to feel for the cold spot on the base of his spine.

"I'm wet!" he cried indignantly, spotting the dewy grass where his t-shirt had soaked up most of a puddle.

Brennan started laughing as she seriously made him turn around.

"Booth you…you…landed in manure!"

"WHAT!" he bellowed, and the horses that had been watching their antics with bored expressions threw their heads up in protest. Brennan moved to grab them both before they could bolt. To Booth's opinion that looked like….never. They were too busy stuffing their greedy little guts on the grass and dandelions littering the area.

"Take…take…"Brennan doubled over laughingly and finally managed to compose herself. "Take off your shirt."

"My shirt!" yelped Booth, glancing around apprehensively.

"You'll get manure down your pants." Her bald faced statement had Booth ripping off his shirt like it was on fire, carefully pulled over his head so as not to get manure in his hair.

He didn't miss Brennan's long, lingering glance over his body.

"Like what you see?" he asked, making his pecs jump in time with his words. She blushed hard and laughed again while protesting it wasn't funny.

"Give me the shirt," she ordered, holding out a hand. Perversely, Booth held it over her head. She jumped for it, annoying the horses by pulling the slack in that they were straining against to get to a patch of grass that looked exactly the same to Booth's eyes but seemed better to their horsey noses.

"Am I interrupting something?" came a third voice as Brennan landed, torso flush with Booth's as she came down from her high jump. Booth's arm had dropped behind his back, hiding the shirt so it looked as if the ranch owner had stumbled upon a shirtless man and a woman pressed inches from his face, staring stupidly at the interruption. As usual, they jolted apart.

"You're not interrupting anything," stammered Booth, shirt still fisted behind him.

"Uh huh," said the owner in a sort of unconvincing way. "Sure."'

"I fell into manure," Booth said, his face burning. The man laughed as if this were the most hilarious thing in the world.

"You fell off of _Stretch_? That lazy old boy?"

"I…" Brennan cleared her throat. "I tackled him." She swallowed in synchronization and it took three seconds for all of them to hear the sexual innuendo in that before Booth groaned. The owner nodded as if more unconvinced than ever and jerked his hand.

"I got another shirt in my truck."

They trooped together in trepidation but Brennan still slipped shyly up to hold his arm and press herself against him, causing his face to light up in a little boy's grin. Maybe this day wasn't so _crappy_ after all.

* * *

That night, Booth reached into the drawer without thinking, a ritual forming without his permission. As the night previous, he didn't look at the salutation until he pulled it back out. The address made his heart flip with his stomach.

_Letter to an Insurgent_. The date made his eyes dart across the page, unseeing as he calculated her age. This was two years before they had ever met; she had been 25. It was the year she had joined the Jeffersonian in the following September. Booth had to wonder at his ability to offhandedly map her life out.

_July 17th, 2002_

_Dear sir,_

_ I'm your hostage that got away; I was the one, with another White man, who was taken by the Marine Corps. I was the one who revealed your genocidal terrorist organization. I'm the reason you've in all probability been executed._

_ And I wanted to say I'm sorry._

Booth swallowed heavily. He had been a hostage; he knew what it was like. When his FBI rogue colleague had taken Brennan to cover his mafia ties, Booth had simply assumed she had never been in such a situation. He had done the same when the gravedigger had abducted her. Yet at 25 she was fully cognizant of what it meant to have your own life hang in the balance of another's less capable, crueler hands. But why would she be _sorry_? He gritted his teeth.

_I'm sorry you grew up in a poverty ravished home in a country where contraception was discouraged. I'm sorry you never had enough to eat, and your parents kept making more mouths to feed. I'm sorry that the water you had to drink was full of fluoride and stained your teeth. I'm sorry that the school system is so overcrowded and poorly run, sometimes teachers don't show up much less teach you. I'm sorry your father left you. I'm sorry your mother wanted you to work, not to get an education. I'm sorry that in all probability one of your siblings or closest friends was killed in front of you. I'm sorry the only job a poor uneducated urchin could get was drug running. I'm sorry your life was hard from the start and that you had very few options to better yourself. _

_ I understand what it's like not to be given a choice. People say there is always a choice – that you could have tried harder. But why try harder when you know in your heart you are not the one in a million shot? You are unexceptional. You are ordinary. I have been told that my entire life._

Bones – _ordinary_? Bones unexceptional? Preposterous. Impossible, yet here in her letter, did Booth read she had never been given a modicum of support or belief. So much made sense now; she was self-made, in every sense of the word. Self-made in personality, in success, in interest, in drive and even had self crafted her own surrogate family. Now Booth understood why being in a partnership had been, and still was, so difficult for her. It was like she had said on the steps when he had confessed that he loved her. _I'm on my own; that's all I've ever known._ She had been carrying her world so long out of necessity that someone trying to share the load could look suspiciously like he was trying to take it away.

_I'm sure the reason you now are addicted to drugs is because they are the only measure of controlled happiness you can achieve by scrambling your neurotoxins in order to make a drug cocktail, fooling you into believing you have the life you want. I'm sure the reason you carry a gun and ruthlessly kill is because of that addiction – the first thing you have ever cared more in your life than yourself – and you need to work. And what other work can you do, when you were drafted as young as 9 or 10 into the drug cartel world? I understand. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for you, because most of what you've done has been out of necessity. You are not a sadistic killer because you were born that way; you are one because you were _made_ that way. _

_But I'm not sorry for what I did. I'm not sorry you will be held liable for my escape and rescue and that you will (and probably have) been executed by your own gun – an ironic sense of justice. _

_And I wasn't sorry for you when you tied me to a stake for days without any scrap of clothing. I wasn't sorry when I could smell the stench of my own urine three feet from my side where I was able to stretch as far as I could to relieve myself. I wasn't sorry that although you took my clothes, they wouldn't let you spoil me. I wasn't sorry for you when you raped that little boy right in front of me as punishment and I could not hide from the ugliness of the world, in both your eyes, and his._

Booth realized the taste in his mouth was bile. He had _never_ imagined the depths Brennan had been through in her travels simply because she never spoke of them, just as he never spoke of war. Yet there they were, glaringly obvious on the page, never supposed to be read by anyone – the scars of what she had seen, of what she had been through. The little boy…Brennan…Booth's head ached and he realized his nose felt all stopped up as he thought briefly about Parker wondering if – He shut the graphic image off in his mind like a faucet, his eyes dripping a little the way faucets do.

He continued, and so did she.

_They say there's always a choice, and while I shy from complete and sweeping statements as I cannot plausibly map out all the variables – _Booth almost cracked a smile at her typical interruption – _the choice is between necessity and voyeurism. There is a difference between being drafted into an army you didn't wish for, and taking up the reins with a sadistic vigor. It's one thing to kill, and another to torture. And as I sat watching you murder innocent people, shaking with goosebumps even in the languid heat without a stitch of clothing on me, too mortified to look at my male colleague, I hated you. I loathed you. I wanted to murder you as you murdered them. But then I decided I wanted more than that; I wanted to be more sadistic than that, because you deserved it. _

The rank hatred dripping from her words startled Booth; he had never seen his partner so vicious.

_But then I realized my survival was the torture you would have to endure. My silence would be more unnerving. You called me 'ojos de fantasma' which means 'ghost eyes' as I watched you mutely, partially out of disbelief and partially out of revulsion. You didn't know I spoke Spanish. It gave me the only power I felt I had. And I'm very glad you are dead. _

_ Yet even as I write this I feel the hatred ebb after a month of nightmares. It's actually not a good letter at all. I am not happy; nothing about this gives me pleasure. It is sad. And only sad. Because the more I think, the more I realize that if one person had showed you human kindness, that little boy may still be alive. And if one person had changed your life, your example could have changed others. Perhaps then we could have changed your neighborhood. Then we would have changed terrorism. Then we would have changed the world and I would never have been tied to the earth for three days because you would have been someone like a teacher. You could have been a teacher._

_ I am relieved you're dead in the same way someone is relieved when a mad dog is put down; it's better for everyone, even the dog. _

_ And I realize that torturing that boy, and torturing me were ways of torturing _you_. You were stuck in a world of self loathing, and your means of control were to torture yourself. I'm sorry it ever came to that. _

_ May your family learn from your mistaken example._

_ Sincerely,_

_ Dr. Temperance Brennan, hostage with the ghost eyes_

* * *

Booth folded the letter feeling sick to his stomach. He slammed the drawer shut when he heard the knock on his door. He bounded from bed, heart thundering against his rib cage. Had she found out? Ridiculous. There was no way. But he still opened the door with a measure of apprehension.

"Bones!" he exclaimed cheerily, seeing her smiling face. She held out something soft.

"Here's your shirt. I washed it." Booth noted she didn't say '_I had it washed._' She had done it. Herself. Out of kindness. He took it seriously and smiled in spite of himself as he realized it smelled the way her clothes always did.

"You bring your own detergent as a matter of pride?" he teased her. She blushed.

"I like a specific scent, and I don't see why I would have to use someone as a slave to do what I'm perfectly capable of."

"You're paying them," Booth argued, lounging against the doorframe.

"I pay less for the Laundromat," sniffed Brennan.

"Aren't you ridonkulously wealthy?" teased Booth. Her face stiffened and her voice went a little frosty at the edges. He felt bad, suddenly, for mocking her for something she had accomplished herself, with literally no one to help her. He knew now, what she had come from. Even if it was just a part. There were a lot of letters.

"Ridonkulous is not a word," she informed him severely. He chucked her gently on a shoulder.

"Hey, I was just-"

"I know," she smiled wearily. "I'm probably just going to sleep. Maybe work on my book."

"Work is work," stressed Booth, jumping on the key word. "Sure you don't want to have another slumber party?" He jerked his thumb over a shoulder. She made a face.

"You're too warm."

"You kick," he informed her.

"You snore," she protested, getting a little into his personal space. He stepped right back into hers as retaliation.

"You talk."

"You hum." They both stopped, and started laughing breathlessly inches so close, Brennan could feel his hot breath on her tongue.

"I'm going to bed," she informed him primly, and spun about, leaving the cold air of space where Booth had left his face hanging stupidly. He grunted, irked, and grabbed her arm, noticing her limp. He spun her around with the ease of Fred Astair.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he searched her eyes thoroughly. _No_, should be the words she was whimpering. _No I can never be okay again after what I've seen, what I've been through. What I've don-_ Booth had to tell himself this was not about him. She glanced down at her ankle in between them, but she seemed cognizant that he was speaking of something else entirely. Her eyes flickered and Booth realized, though he tried to keep his astonishment to himself, that something had been bothering her. He had been speaking of her past, which she couldn't possibly know he knew about, she had been speaking of the present, which _he_ didn't know about, and they were both wrapping the sham up in speaking of her ankle.

"Yes, I'm okay," she said simply, and turned fully, tucking her arms around her body as she strode the three paces to her own door. She turned back shyly to look at him. "Thanks though."

"My door is open," Booth called to her. He made a show of dead bolting it. "And thanks for –" he waved the shirt. She nodded but made no move to return. In one fluid motion, she had shut her door, leaving Booth feeling as desperately lonely as the voice of Brennan had been in her latest letter.

He crawled dejectedly into bed.

He lay awake, his eyes shut against the dark, for hours until he heard the squeak of the door. The breathing was muffled like a heavy asthmatic, if clearing the sinuses was a more appropriate nomer than crying, and the footsteps hesitant. Booth could see her shadow through slitted eyes as she stared down at him. He wondered if he should feign sleep. He then realized she could probably tell with her anthropological magical mumbo-jumbo just what the resting heart rate, breathing rate, and body angles a sleeper would have that a faker wouldn't. Instead, though she was just a silhouette and so was he against the dark bed, he raised a hand in mute greeting before pulling down the covers on one side.

She didn't say anything, and neither did he. But she didn't run either.

She crawled into bed next to him and immediately turned her back, concealing her face, as if Booth couldn't read in every line of her body that she was crying. Booth firmly but gently turned her towards him and buried her face into his chest. He realized by the way her body stiffened that he wasn't wearing a shirt. He tightened his arms, afraid she would leave, but she simply folded her knees to her chest, tucking them against his abdomen. He let her cold little toes slip between his thighs and made a fake protesting sound at how freezing they were. She gave a watery laugh in response as he held her. They still didn't speak in words as he rumbled a protective sound as he stroked her hair, and she cried silently in his arms.

Although he had been awake for three hours and twelve minutes, at 4:01, Booth fell into a dreamless, happy sleep, grateful to be able to do anything for her at all.


	5. She Won't Turn Around

**Yesterday's episode "The Doctor In the Photo" was INCREDIBLE. I had a spaz attack/geekin' out fest. I also watched it twice with different people. It was like all of fanfiction had banded together to create one introspective, Brennan-centric, angstophile episode. The regular flavor of Bones was completely knocked askew, and she spent more time with the night watchmen than any of the characters on screen (but that's okay because we all love Keith Mars – am I right?) But it somehow **_**worked**_** and changed…everything. When she started crying, I wanted to crash the car – Booth not daring to touch her. Asshole. Ok. Rant over. But know I almost gave up on this story altogether. Review. 3**

* * *

Booth knew he was creating a pattern of dichotomy. The last few days he had spent with Brennan had been achingly perfect, if case related. The nights though…those were the most interesting yet tormenting parts of the day as he read, what he knew beyond a doubt regardless of label, was her diary. Yet like an addict, he simply could no longer fall asleep without reading one, needing a hit. He had stayed up until five am the night before, plagued by her confessions, yet without reading them, he wouldn't have slept the scant three hours he had.

They awoke simultaneously this time. Brennan arched her back, feeling something heavy draped across her stomach. Booth woke feeling something hogging the entire bed. They both guiltily slit their eyes, afraid to break the woven spell of silence they had created last night. Booth craned his neck and couldn't help it.

"Great. Thanks Bones." He was sarcastic. Brennan was sprawled across almost 5/6 of the bed, laying diagonally, her limbs spread-eagled. They had started their sleep tucked into convalescent corresponding shapes and ended with Brennan taking up all the space. Booth's body was bent at a strange 90 degree angle, his torsos aligning the pillows atop the narrow strip of bed where Brennan's titan brown hair hadn't unfurled. His legs were tightly pressed together next to one of her arms. He groaned as he tried to lever himself up. He gratefully accepted the hand she gave him and pulled. He wasn't shy about letting her actually haul his weight up either, and she grunted as he came forward. Booth whimpered and let/pretended to allow his head fall against her bare shoulder.

"I can't move." She was immediately consoling, letting her cool fingers slither over his broadly muscled bare back, touching knots.

"Here, lay on your stomach," she said in her usual bossy tone. Booth couldn't argue, only emit little sad noises as he army crawled forward until he groaned a sigh when he was all the way stretched out. The blood rushed to his face as it hung over the side of the bed. He squeaked when he felt the bed rustle and shift. He turned his face sharply to see her precariously and drunkenly staggering about, standing atop the mattress.

"Bones…what are you doing?"

"You're back hurts. I'll walk on it."

"WHAT?" She looked nonplussed.

"It won't hurt."

"You're like 140 pounds!" Booth yelped. He knew it was the wrong thing to say before he was done saying it by the way her eyes narrowed.

"Are you saying I'm fat?"

"No! I just…I just…" he knew he couldn't win anymore and grunted, dropping his head in ascent. He felt a hesitant bare foot on top of the base of his spine. He grunted again when she quickly and adeptly put all weight on that one foot before levering her other foot between his shoulder blades and shifted.

Booth's air went out in a rush and before he could berate her, his back crackled like an electric field, about 20 knots snapping their tension at once.

"Whoa…" he wheezed; she was right…it didn't hurt, he was just surprised.

She did some bizarre little dance and another 10 or so pops zinged through the air.

"God, how did you…" he mumbled; he was drooling unabashedly on the sheets.

"Is there a specific area that feels tight?" she asked lightly, balancing both feet on his bottom in order to give his lungs some expansion. Booth flopped a jelly arm up and around gesturing in the general area of the middle of his back.

"Right there…no…little higher…move your foot- the other foot…yeah…okay…right there. Shift." Brennan threw her weight to one side. Booth held his breath in anticipation and let it out in frustration when nothing happened.

"I'm going to try something. Just breathe normally." Booth had to wonder later why he never questioned when she got that tone of voice, but he always knew it was trouble. He did as she asked, however, and sucked in a deep breath as she positioned her feet. He only had a split second to try to let some of it out as he felt her knees tense and her feet simultaneously leave his skin. His immediate reaction was: _No! Don't!_ But the instant she was in the air, Booth only had time to open his mouth before she landed back on him with a bed shaking crash, effectively rendering his reaction as a pitiful _nnnnnnhhhnnn._

The loudest crack yet, and a good half of Booth's tension, filled the air. She rolled off of him, laughing and panting, flopping down on her own stomach beside him face, snickering at his incredulous look as he experimentally arched upwards in a parody of a yoga position.

"It worked!" he exclaimed. Her grin was radiant; his turned sly.

"My turn!"

"Booth!" she warned, trying to struggle, but his feet were already straddling her torso, locking her in place. "Booth!" she giggled as he dug the knuckles of his toes into her ribs.

"Aww, come on now!" he pleaded, but he knew in his heart he could never step on her. She was too little and he was too big; plain and simple.

"No!" she shrieked as she felt the bed seize up as he squatted in preparation to jump on her. He jumped, but made sure his feet landed in exactly the same place, barely brushing her sides on the descent. She shrieked, laughing, as he did it again, pleased with his game. They were shaking the bed, not to mention the room, and Brennan was laughing so hard her flailing arm inadvertently knocked off the alarm clock.

* * *

"So…" drawled Hodgins hesitantly, looking around at the rest of the team who were standing outside of Booth's door, hearing the noises coming from inside. Angela was blushing, Cam was covering her mouth, and Sweet's jaw was on the floor. "Who's going to open it? They gave us a key card when we checked in this morning for Booth's suite as the master suite."

"You don't think…" Angela said hesitantly as a particularly loud crash accentuated the rhythmic banging sounds coming from the hotel room, accompanied by a woman's shrieks and a man's growl.

"No…" Sweets said, sounding more confident than his boyish face looked. "No…they can't be…" he looked around as the insistent thumping unceasingly continued. The obvious sounds of the headboard crashing against sheetrock were unmistakable. "Can they?"

"Oh please," Angela finally muttered. "Like we haven't all seen it or done it."

"Sometimes in front of other people," Sweets nodded, his face burning in remembrance of Booth and Brennan's interruption of a little couch time with Daisy. He realized how that had sounded only after registering the three other scandalized faces gaping at him. "That's not what…" he started but Cam cut him off.

"Okay. Angela. You open the door. We'll all go in together." Angela looked as if she wanted to shirk her duty but swallowed her complaint. The four glanced at each other and nodded resolutely. Angela quickly swiped and opened the door. The four spilled in, either eager for their ears to be proven wrong or in a fascinated sort of morbid curiosity; it was hard to tell.

"Booth no!" Brennan shrieked again as Booth continued to bounce up and down, sweat pants whapping her in the face every time he jumped.

"Oh," Booth said, his face alight with a boyish joy, and laughing fiercely. Brennan was crying she was laughing so hard. He continued to bounce as he looked at their frozen, shocked figures. "Hey guys."

* * *

"No more sleepovers," Brennan said severely, slamming her door in his face. Cam stuck her head out of the door next to Booth's.

"You know how that sounds, right Seeley?" Booth ground his teeth. Hell, he loved the lab, but having them encroach on his and Brennan's time was unacceptable. The day had been long enough as it was, with a crying parent lamenting the loss of her son. She hadn't reported him because they were illegal immigrants from the Dominican Republic, moved out to Kentucky so her husband could continue his corporate job. The victim had been the lowly non-White stable boy. As invisible as the dirt, and the same color.

"Shut up Camille," he growled and slammed his own door shut. He didn't envy poor Sweets who was next to Hodgins and Angela on the floor below, probably subject to listening to their love making all night.

He leaned against the door, breathing hard, rubbing up against temptation along with the white painted wood. The nightstand was more enticing than any gambling table had ever been. He gulped hard and spun around, yanking his door open and quickly striding those short three paces across the hall. He pounded on Brennan's door.

"Booth," she grouched, guessing who it was before she had even seen his face. She opened it and scowled. "I said no."

"But what if you have another nightmare?" he said quickly. Her face went carefully blank of the darkened cloud that stormed across it.

"I'm thirty two. I think I can handle it."

"But what if I have a nightmare?" he begged desperately, feeling the strong pull of the siren song issuing from his nightstand. The helplessness and obscurity of having an addiction swamped him with all the familiarity of an old friend. An old, conniving, selfish, embittered friend. Hell, if she said no he might have to pound on Camille's door. He wasn't about to flee downstairs to some punk ass kid. But he knew what would happen if he spent the night with Cam. They couldn't help it. They were adults who knew each other as teenagers. Their judgments were impaired before the beginning. It was part of why their relationship never worked out; their teenage minds could never make any elbow room for rational arguments or adult respect.

Something in his face must have made her pause, for she frowned.

"Are you going to have a nightmare?" Booth knew he was hardly likely to sleep at all.

"Yes," he said definitively.

"Why?" she asked, leaning against the doorframe to manually hem him in.

"I don't like horses," blurted Booth. He saw her dumbfounded face and tacked, "sorry" onto the end.

"You're going to have nightmares about horses?" she asked skeptically. Booth knew he was losing her.

"Remember pony play? I didn't sleep for weeks after that one." She gave a wry smile and stepped aside.

"You better not snore," she admonished.

* * *

The clock emitted this horrible high pitched whining sound that Brennan – sleeping peacefully – seemed completely unaware of. She had made him sleep in the other bed. Unlike his room with a queen, she had two fulls. He thrashed about again, grunting. Her breathing hitched and Booth froze, feeling guilty for startling her. He craned his head up, holding his breath as he searched for the time. For a moment the green numbers didn't make sense. Then he realized they read 2:51. He hissed a sigh, knowing full well what could rock him to sleep as gently as any baby…given an hour or two of soul wrenching anguish and introspection following each diary like letter.

His feet decided before his head did and hit the floor with a soft thump that used to be more intimidating when they were clad in military issue combat boots. He paced, a predator, to his door and swiped in quietly. He looked around feeling guilty at his immaculately made bed, and simply dipped a hand into the drawer and tucked the letter into his sweatpants pocket. He left, letting his bare feet wander down the cemented stairwell and out the side door instead of through the main lobby. He walked through the May night, smelling sweet grass and alfalfa on the breeze and looked out into the ring. The hot sand was inviting in the slightly cool night. He grinned as he ducked through the bars, not bothering with the squeaky gate, and squished the sand between his toes.

He settled his broad back up against a wooden box painted like a brick wall between two jumping standards as he unfolded the letter. The moon was full, and it was so bright and shining under the Kentucky sky, devoid of DC's pollution, the ink scintillated in the silvery light, as easy to read as if under fluorescents.

Booth smoothed it as usual against the long curve of his bent thigh, his knees folded to create a literal lap desk. Here was the letter titled _Letter to a Sister_ Booth had glimpsed in his original scan of their headings.

_December 3__rd__ 1996_

_Dearest_ – Dearest? Wondered Booth. That was such an unlikely Brennan word. Yet here, he had to remind himself, she was still Temperance. 18 years old and a sophomore in college – she had graduated the youngest in her class.

_Dearest Elise_,

_ I'm very glad you will never read this letter, though a more broken, a more savage, and a crueler part of me wishes you would. _

Booth's hackles went up.

_ As a sister, you are the first foster family that worked out, and that lasted. Living with you and yours for the last part of senior year was the best time I've had since my family…left. _

_ All right, all right, I can see that _look _you get on your face when I'm not being brutally honest. I feel that you are conditioning me just as Pavlov classically conditioned his dog; you make that face whenever I don't use the exact words. _

Booth's jaw dropped. His Bones had been _taught_ her ingenuous honesty? Impossible.

_Since my family…at least Russ for positive…abandoned me. But I still believe my parents died. It's unlikely that they would ever leave me for my own good. But we've argued this conversation too many times. I already know your side by heart. 'They could have been protecting you,' you parrot, 'you don't know all the facts,' you chide. 'Don't jump to conclusions,' you command_._ All right already. _

Booth squinted, unsure if the moonlight was playing with his head. These could not be the correct words on the page.

_As my sister, I loved you. Wholly. Without reserve. I know you disliked that our relationship was so unequal since I forced you to share everything – your every thought, memory and action of your charmed and perfect life – while letting you see nothing of me and my intensely damaged one._

Okay, there was Bones. Booth breathed a sigh, glad he wasn't seeing things. Again.

_But you couldn't understand. I've told you this in every note I wrote you Freshman year. We debated about it all summer as I came "home" for the last time as I turned 18 this October and came into my legal adulthood, kicked out of the System. You simply _cannot_ understand huge chunks of me. I am perfectly happy to love you without reserve, and try to keep nothing from you except for those censored parts of my life. But you have to realize that you can only ever see 2/3 of me. Because there's a third of me – the last third of my life – that cannot see the light of day, metaphorically speaking (obviously). There is a third of me you cannot comprehend since your biggest problem/fear/regret in life was your friends cutting you out of your Church group. You have two wealthy, successful parents and go to an exclusive private school I never got to be in. Your brother is very bright, and was just accepted into the Marines. You cannot even _imagine_ the horrors I have been through._

_The funny thing is that the instances that haunt me the most are the small ones. It wasn't the day my parents left. It wasn't the day I moved into foster care. It's the nightly torturing of myself as I imagined my mother dying somewhere. As I imagined my father's decomposing body matching the timelines in my textbook, losing flesh day by day, ravaged in a ditch for an inglorious grave. It wasn't when my foster parents were cruel and unimaginable, it was when I was waiting in the office to meet the new ones, inflicting myself with grotesque images of a rapist for a father...or worse, a loving family that didn't want me. It's not the actions...it's my reactions. The part I can't show you is my own mind. It frightens me daily and I've been very used to it; how could I let it destroy you when I ask you to imagine your mother being thrown underwater, all her bones broken so she slowly dies an agonizing death as she fights for life? The images inside me are the ones that divide me. _

_You say you want to try, to be there for me. But how am I helping you? I am hurting you by explaining how hard, how cruel, life can be. Instead, I am encroaching on your perfect world and tarnishing your innocence. As ridiculous as it sounds, you wear this beautiful white wedding dress and I am more than happy to play the bridesmaid. It's easy to be around you. Simple. Refreshing. I never have to interpret silences – which I'm terrible at. You say what you mean. You are upfront. You don't have to hide any part of yourself._

Booth realized he had been holding his breath. He knew exactly what Bones was talking about. There _were_ people who didn't need to cover any of themselves up because they were pure. But it wasn't because of their choices, it was simply because they had never been forced into a situation where both outcomes had tragic endings; where you had to choose between bad and worse. And you chose the one you could live with. And she was also correct, that being around those people was soothing. They never made anything complicated; they never broke down, they never froze in situations without warning. They were blissful and slightly condescending. But they were comforting.

_But you ask me to give you all of me, and that little girl inside of me, that ruptured third…that's the little girl covered in blood, wanting to hug your pristine white dress. And blood doesn't ever come out of silk. Not all the way. I can't be the one who tarnishes your world. The guilt would kill me. _

_I know you know all of this. I also know you think I am being self serving, to conceal my true discomfort with emotional sharing. That assessment is partially correct. But if you paid attention at all to some of your East Coast schooling, you will recall Plato's "Allegory of the Cave." _

_There are men chained since infancy, staring at a stone wall. They cannot turn their heads left nor right, up nor down. They can only stare at the wall where the shadows of other people pass before it. The fire burns brightly behind them and other liberated peoples pass, throwing their actions against the slate. If one of the men is freed, his brain cannot comprehend three-dimensional shapes. He cannot understand anything but black and white, shadow and light. After agony and suffering, he comes to understand 'reality.' He is then shown a way out of the cave, up a path towards the outside. The path is hard, and his muscles atrophied and weak. He emerges on the grass, and his world is again shaken beyond understanding. There are new sights, smells, colors, textures and sounds. There is language and culture and other people. For a man born into an enslavement of watching shadows, it is incomprehensible. He briefly goes mad before he again, acclimates. After understanding the schooling and grasping the way it is, he must descend to bring up another of his mates or stay and teach in society. Very few wish to venture below, because the world is close, small and dark – almost as incomprehensible as their new world was at first. And the added pain of ruining the contentment of another soul is not worth it. Although the benefit of enlarging the world is a positive attribute to the parabolic story, many conclude that the embittered sense of injustice upon discovering their enslavement, the beauty but also cruelty of the world, may not always be better than the blissful but apathetic ignorance of watching shadows. _

_Obviously I will saddle you with the ignominy of being a shadow watcher. But please believe me, I am not such a noble soul as to drag you through the hell in order for you to better understand "enlightenment." _

Booth couldn't decide if he wanted to laugh, or spit out the gritty feeling in his mouth. She had gotten it all right. And she wasn't close to done.

_But homily aside – can I still utilize this word if I'm not ordained in the Catholic faith?_ – Booth laughed a little dry chuckle. _Besides my usual argument about your – not naïveté or immaturity, but rather clean conscience – what I wish to address is my regret that you have cut me out of your life with a surgical precision that...hurts. How is that for brutally brash? Believable? _

_We were sisters…at least I thought we were. I don't mean to sound cynical, but I should have known better than to "fall in love" so quickly with you (in a familial, non-dopamine way and more a comfort level serotonin type of way.) __Our comfort zone is those set of emotional intensities in our emotional hyperspace in which we feel at ease or comfortable. Outside our comfort zone we feel discomfort. The further we move out away from our comfort zone, the greater the discomfort becomes.__Physiologically, this comfort zone is known as homeostasis. Homeostasis is defined as a state of steady state equilibrium or a tendency toward that state. Organisms try to maintain their various biochemical and physiological processes within those homeostatic bounds._

Trust Bones to try to explain a heart thing with bigheaded logic and biology. She was definitely in college now. At least her clumsy emotions weren't as calculatedly reserved as the present.

_What I'm trying to say is that I see I had made a mistake. I carefully sewed myself into your life. I interrupted your daily rituals and made them ours instead of yours. I made sure we were in constant communication. When I went to my first year of college, we were together before you transferred. We were roommates, dining hall mates and always there for one another. We spent almost every waking, and sleeping, moment together. I carefully tailored your life around mine so I could feel…complete again. Knowing how much you hated our university and felt it was beneath you (though it was all I could afford with the generous scholarships), I should have recognized the signs of you trying to assert your dominance and individuality. I must apologize for my inept behavioral studies._

He ached for her. Although she was shouldering much of the blame, Booth didn't have to know the whole story to understand Brennan had given herself – as much as she could anyway – to this girl, to a sister – and that girl had yanked it away when they separated. Brennan's abandonment issues were simply reaffirmed one more time. Don't trust anyone. Booth swallowed; he understood with a sinking sort of revelation, why his partner had such a hard time trusting him or anyone else. It wasn't just one episode – it occurred with a sadistic sort of luck over, and over, and over again.

_As soon as I left, I knew you needed space; we went from talking everyday to speaking once a month. Those weeks…those weeks of silence only to speak on the phone about trivial, meaningless things drove me mad. When I implored you to be honest with me, you pushed me away. When I begged you to listen to me, you showered our conversations with your college workload. I was missing my best friend because you were missing. _

_When I saw you at Thanksgiving, "home" to move my remaining belongings out of a house I no longer belonged in – anticipating a lonely Christmas – you finally were honest with me, in the last five minutes at the airport. I gave you my diary, the last I'll ever write, so you would understand my thought process. I asked, with a half smile, why things were different. You didn't smile when you said, "They can never be the same between us again." Then we parted ways. You never responded to the diary. Then our conversations grew less frequent. Now we haven't spoken. I miss you._

_I haven't spoken to you in several months, but it's not because I didn't need you. It's not because my life suddenly mended itself. It's just that you stitched yourself a new family and a new friend base, and being with me outweighs the benefits. That's what Anna told me anyway. She told me that I need to stop this long distance "disease" since whenever I call you I simply distress you. Any benefit I might bring to the relationship is severely outweighed by the toll I take. _

Booth wanted to hit this 'Anna.' How dare she say that to Bones. Didn't she _know_? Didn't she understand? Bones had _no one_. It wasn't selfish of her to want, to need, a best friend. For an outside force to yank it away, seeing how 'soiled' Brennan was, and how pure her foster-sister Elise was, and intervene…Clearly, Brennan could see the same danger. Yet she was shut out, doomed to look in once more.

_Oh Elise, it's funny how much I can accomplish now that you are gone. Homework loads that would take me all night with you laughing by my side and distracting me with your technologically advanced laptop suddenly are restricted to a strict midnight bedtime. I've attempted to fill the void you've seemingly left agape, like leaving a window open for the draft to come in. I've doubled my major and tripled my minors. I'm in 20 hours a semester and rarely sleep. In order to meet people, I've joined several groups. Yet regardless of the fact I can barely breathe or rest for more than an hour at a time, sometimes the longest words I speak in a day are to the people who swipe my card into the cafeteria. The longest conversations I have are with my professor, obsessively correcting my work as you taught me. The longest emotions I feel are when I see, just for a moment, a group of girls holding hands, drunkenly staggering in heels as I tote my heavy backpack from the closed library in the middle of the night. Yet regardless of how much work I get done, I feel myself finding empty. There is no celebration as we used to have, drinking champagne after finals, or going to get ice cream after a long day. After I complete my work, or a project, there is only me…and more work. And so, with a sigh, I pull it towards me because the alternative is to stare at the ceiling tiles. _

_There are 18. _

Booth wanted to stick his arm up to the elbow into the moonlit letter, and pull this suffering teenager, so much wiser and more elegant in her fluid writing, out of the pages, and just hold her. Whisper not to let this become her life. Not to let her settle. Not to expect that everyone would always leave, because that's exactly what the letter was laden with: the fear of what her life was becoming.

And it had come true. She had lived her nightmare.

_And Elise, I am so very sorry for saying these things to you, and am therefore glad you can't see the reality my life has become. I told you I would succeed; I didn't realize there was more than one measure of success. My whole life has been about getting away; now I'm gone, and so is everyone else. Everything else. And I don't want to call you up and confess that I need you, that I'm miserable, because you don't need that kind of pressure in your life. My good cannot sufficiently measure up to the cost I exert on your emotional wellbeing. You have enough to look at, enough to keep clean and pure, without me putting bloody handprints on your life. __Because if I tell you what I really think, I'll hurt you. It's not my intention to hurt you, so it's just better that you leave._

_I feel guilty confessing even if you can't hear me. I feel guilty for hurting you, but also in a vindictive way, content that you are slowly breaking little pieces off of the 2/3 of me that was okay. I am so intensely frustrated that I let myself be broken over something that was so clearly my own failing. I wanted to believe the fairytale you do: of happy endings, and strong lasting friendships, and real families and true love. _

_But I cannot. Because life isn't a fairytale. I'm not going through the climax of the story. I'm not fighting the troll; I am the troll. I am ugly, and hated and abused. There is no happily ever after for us who don't wear the white you do. You can believe in the happy ending because in the fairytale, you get to be the princess. I'm not beloved by anyone; there is no fantasy land for me. __I hope you find whatever you dream of, chasing rainbows as I used to, quite literally, with my family in the car and the Beach Boys singing._

_But rainbows come out of the back of a raindrop and chasing them is chasing a spectral circle of refracted light. It's useless to even try. _

_I wish you a new sister; I never want one again._

_Temperance_

Booth looked up at the moonlight and shut his eyes.


	6. Stupid FF Author's Note 20

**Hey Guys, **

** Sorry FF is being so bitchy about comments. I know the last thing you want is an inbox cluttered with misleading information about new chapters when in reality I (foolishly it appears) thought I could simply delete the damn authors note. No dice. What the frick. Okay. Anyways. You can review on the next chapter (7 which is really 6).**

** Okay we're cool here.**

**Thanks!**

* * *

(Previously, on my entitlistic ranting)

Dear All,

As you may have noticed, my story updates have suddenly dropped into oblivion. So sorry! I _would_ post, but my computer has taken a very bone headed turn and is in the shop. For a week. And hundreds of dollars. All for moving at a glacial pace.

The chapters I have already half written are also on there; I don't have emailed copies. If my hard drive comes back wiped, I'll be glad to rewrite them, but until then (let's hope that never, ever, happens) I have to beg for patience as I twiddle and come up with new ideas.

Thanks guys; sorry this sucks. If it makes you feel better, I'm going stir crazy too.

K


	7. The Shadows Are Long

**Happy New Years. Have a chapter; they wiped my hard drive. Worked this up from scratch. Took a long while and a lot out of me. Review, please, please, please. **

* * *

The dark shadow crossed behind his eyelids and he flinched away before he could help himself, throwing his arms before his face instinctively, his fever dream of his father.

"Seeley?" the voice was hesitant and hurt and Booth knew without opening his eyes who it had to be, and let his arms fall in defeat; only one person called him Seeley.

"Camille," he grated back out, slitting open his eyes against the sun. She stood silhouetted against the sky more than outlined, but he could still feel the revulsion, the pain, that rolled off of her whenever he inadvertently let his broken past shine through. He huffed out a breath, arching his incredibly sore back with a groan and grunted, "Don't call me Seeley." She dimpled a parody of a smile at him, her eyes still confused and concerned. He had to remind himself she had seen him at his worst, in the middle of gambling and broken up in college, confused and aimless about his mother's death and his father's abandonment.

"Why are you outside?" She asked simultaneously while he grimaced,

"What time is it?"

"It's seven-thirty," she told him primly but the glare plastered across her face and her mute accusations were not so polite. She waited and he knew he wouldn't get out of giving her a semi adequate answer.

"I took a walk," he grunted.

"A walk." Her tone was neutral but it still made him scrunch up his face irritably.

"Yes, a walk." Her implied _why?_ hung in the air. Booth thoughtfully screwed his little finger into one ear as if he could shut off the part of his brain that heard unspoken conversations. He finally grumbled a fragmented portion of the truth. "Nights are hard...sometimes."

Her face immediately crumpled in empathy - not sympathy but empathy - and Booth felt like scum for deceiving his best friend. Yet what was between him and Bones was just theirs. That was what he preached at her anyway.

"Booth, I'm so sorry I didn't-"

"Forget it." He held his hands out to her and let her haul him up. He was more of a gentleman with Cam though, and took most of his own weight so she barely touched him in the effort. She scrunched her nose at him in annoyance as she often did and Booth felt that warmth heat up his stomach: a quarter cup of guilt and three quarters of gratitude. Gratitude that someone had been through most of it with him and still could stand to touch him. He could count on the fingers of one hand who he trusted with the core of who he was. He tallied up to three. His soldiers and his brother didn't quite make the cut.

Still holding both her hands, Booth spread them out to the sides and grinned hugely. She snatched them from his grasp with another ferocious glower at his smug smile.

"_What_ are you wearing?" Cam was clad in those teeny tiny lycra shorts; the kind made out of black spandex that barely covered her ass. She had paired them with a large, or perhaps extra-large, t-shirt splattered with paint and fadedly proclaiming a walk-a-thon. Booth let his eyes travel down her little legs to where she was wearing tennis shoes. He realized why she was wearing it before it caught up with his mouth.

"I'm going running," she said, just as his brain supplied the reason. He raised his eyebrows at her peppy upbeat ponytail and her obviously visible neon coral sports bra that shone through the white fabric. She smacked him one good, not holding back on the force. He winced and rubbed it; he'd have a bruise. His little brain hiccup had been worth it, if to her disapproval. He wouldn't touch, but Jesus he was _alive_. Anyone within a mile would jump her in a heartbeat. That thought took an uglier turn and he frowned.

"Alone?"

"Yes, alone," she snapped, clearly frazzled about something. "It's East Jesus Kentucky Booth, _no one_ is out. No one is even here!" She gestured wildly at the peaceful countryside, not too far from Lexington. Booth still frowned at her.

"You sure?"

"I'm used to it," she replied absently, straightening a shoelace. Booth took it for fact that she meant she was used to running every morning, yet when she straightened up with a dull blush and downcast eyes, Booth realized she had meant the bit about always being alone. He felt like an ass realizing the lab had so conveniently paired up around her.

"Have a good run then," he said, clapping her on the shoulder; it was the closest she could handle to pity. She rolled her eyes and barked a little dimpled laugh before flipping him the bird. "Get out of here and take a shower," she ordered him, playfully shoving him towards the hotel. It was harder than necessary but still goodnatured. "You reek!" Booth turned around, face suddenly serious, and she stopped laughing abruptly.

"Hey..." he began awkwardly. "Listen...if there's anything..." Her face had become stock still but took a swift veer towards grateful, touched and a bit awkward.

"I know."

"Okay," he breathed, clapping his hands and backing away. "I'm going to go shower."

"See you later!" she called.

* * *

But Booth didn't see her later. It was midday and he was sweating in his suit again. Brennan glanced over, her face rippling with both flushes and pale phases as her body fought to control its internal heat gauge in her long sleeved, heat trapping polyvinyl zoot suit. Or as Brennan preferred, "field wear." She stood in a pit of what used to be the jumping arena; it had been excavated of its jumps and much of its sand for Hodgins - who, very like a little kid in a giant sandbox - was sifting to find more bones but more predictably finding little bits of jewelry the riders had lost over the years. _Outstanding_, Booth grouched to himself.

"Hey Bren," cooed Angela, hovering protectively. She handed Brennan a large bottle of water and then skipped, rather half heartedly, over to Booth to repeat the procedure. Her face was also hot; Booth had to wonder at the amount of hair that woman had and how she could stand to wear it touching her neck. The little amount Booth possessed kept tickling irritably at his shirt collar, reminding him of giant flies fluttering over his vertebrae.

She settled in next to Booth, cocking out one hip and leaning generously on it, tilting her head into the shade of Booth's larger one.

"I don't know _how_ she can work in this weather! The humidity is killing me! Who have thunk there would be so much humidity in a land locked state?"

"Angela, _I_ don't know," Booth groaned; talking about the heat just made it worse. "It's only May. Isn't it supposed to be beautiful? What happened to yesterday?"

"I'd assume from my rather rudimentary grasp of barometry that it's going to rain soon," Brennan called out, drawing Booth's attention to her beautiful ass as she bent down to find one last tool before stomping rather ingloriously over to them both. "Where's Cam? I asked for my tox screen from the little remaining bone marrow over an hour ago."

"What? But I sent off a runner to her with soil samples to screen over two hours ago!" Hodgins complained, pulling a sulky face and drifting up to their group.

"Man she's behind," laughed Angela. Booth felt his gut wrench; he didn't need Sweets to run up and flaunt his ability to exert his incredible will power to move at a faster pace than a slow snail crawl to tell him something was wrong.

"Please say you guys have seen Dr. Saroyan." The four exchanged looks.

"I saw her this morning," said Booth. "Around seven-thirty." Hodgins shook his head.

"I didn't see her this morning; I got to the site late." As if the other three weren't aware of their status as a married couple, Angela had to cue them in with a girlish little giggle and a squirm that left very little doubt why Hodgins had been running late.

"Totally ditto for me," Angela put in, her face serious, though her words rather juvenile.

"I haven't seen her at all," Brennan shrugged, nonplussed and unworried. Booth swallowed hard. Sweets turned back to him.

"Agent Booth, what was she doing, where was she going, when you last saw her?"

"She went for a run." He winced even before the onslaught began.

"Alone?" cried Sweets.

"By herself?" Angela swatted him in the same place Cam had slugged him. He winced and rubbed his arm though Cam had put in twice the sting.

"Do you think she's been abducted?" Brennan asked in her usual unflappable tone. Booth felt his stomach turn over and whipped out his clip-on field radio. "Agents I need four to report. Repeat. I need four agents to report." There was a crackle that sounded like vague words that had the others shrugging but Booth responding, "By the pit. I mean the ring. Whichever."

"Roger that," was clearly audible. The five friends waited in silence that was heavy from humidity and from slick, sweating worry. Four men came at last at a slow jog as Booth beckoned them on impatiently. They dutifully increased their speed and arrived in short sleeved federal blue with FBI emblazoned over their hearts.

"Sir," said one in a baseball cap. He clearly had obtained some sort rank that the Squints could not discern.

"We are missing one of my people," Booth barked, and beside him Brennan swelled a bit at being _his_ person.

One of the muscled men in the background, a bald Black man sporting a wicked scar, began to speak very low into his radio in a steady stream of words as he watched Booth and listened acutely. As Booth detailed what they knew, each of the squints jumped in. Within half an hour a search van was equipped. Booth jumped in and offered his hand to Brennan. She hesitated; it was already cramped and she had work.

"Bones, come on," he barked, and for an instant he knew he had startled her with his soldier mandate. He softened his tone and let her see the guilt shining through his eyes. He wasn't sure if she could pick up on it, but she managed all right as she quickly hauled herself up into the back of the van.

"Hey!" exclaimed Hodgins angrily. "What about us?"

"Stay and work," Brennan said severely. She slammed the back doors and the van lurched away.

"Like hell," muttered Angela.

"Before we do anything stupid," Hodgins said, much to the other two's surprise - Hodgins was rarely cautious - "tell me we all have our cell phones." The other two checked quickly and nodded. Hodgins grinned malevolently at an idling van from a lab technician innocuously left in front of the barn door. "Then let's do this thing."

* * *

"Brennan will you _please_ sit down?"

"Booth there's no where to sit!" she exclaimed. Her rear made a perilously close swipe at Booth's nose again and the other agents shot her a look as she stooped in the driver's blind spot at the back of the van, hunching in what little space they had left and heating the rest up both metaphorically and physically. "Plus it's all hot."

"Then take off your suit!"

"There's no where to stand!" she retorted. Booth, without thinking, grabbed her as he would Parker around the middle and forcibly shoved a knee to the backs of hers. She crumpled with a surprised and enraged squeak into his lap as he wrapped his arms like a seatbelt around her.

"Booth!" Booth grinned until he caught a whiff of her hair; even sweat soaked it smelled like that coconut body oil and orchids. He visibly tried not to shudder or worse, get an erection.

"You can sit here," he grumbled into her neck and then grinned evilly when he saw her get little goosebumps where his hot breath touched her rapidly cooling skin.

"No! You are so hot!" Another agent coughed discreetly.

"We're just partners," Booth snapped, hand out. A bump ground Brennan harder into his groin as she tried to stand up to unzip herself. "Let me help you!" he gasped as he fought to regain blood flow. He forced her back down over her complaints, which he ignored. She was no match for his strength. He reached around to her collarbones and slowly, ever so slowly, teased the zipper down her front. She of course, ruined the moment in his little fantasy land.

"Booth! You're getting in my face! Move your elbow! You'll give me a black eye!"

"Aw come off it," he growled; it went directly into her ear and he felt her tense up. He sighed, realizing with a brutal and irritating new understanding, how deeply her intimacy issues ran. "I got you," he murmured and then nudged her up with a grin in her rear to get her to stand. With a relieved breath, she stripped her zoot suit down to her waist and tied the sleeves like a belt.

"What, not all the way off?" Booth said. Or at least he hoped he said it; although her camisole was sweat soaked, the purple lace was all she was wearing and Booth wasn't even sure if she had a bra on. He hoped his sentence came out legibly and not all garbled like his mind felt. She threw a grin over her shoulder as she sat back down and he watched her beautiful blue eyes dilate when she realized she was less than three inches from his own mouth. She had told him something about pupilometry and dilation, but he couldn't remember if it was a good or bad thing when they dilated.

"I could take it off, but Booth, I'm not wearing any pants." Booth couldn't speak for the rest of the trip.

* * *

"WAIT!" Hodgins bellowed and Angela, who was driving, screeched to a halt as Sweets, whose hand was already grasping the van's built in "oh-shit!" handles (the ones moms grabbed when their teens were first driving in traffic), tightened it to bloodless.

"What's wrong?" she gasped. Hodgins scrambled out of the car. "We're not that far from the barn are we?"

"No," she said sourly. "We've been circling for hours."

"Here." Hodgins crouched and stared. "A footprint."

"So?" Sweets said with that irritating tone teenagers had and someone as young as him hadn't quite lost yet. "It could be anybody's."

"No," Hodgins said absently, drawing out the vowels, "No this is Cam's. I recognize these shoes. I liked them one time when I saw them in her bag at work. They have little sun patterns on the bottom."

"You're right!" Angela crowed, tracing the pattern over the print in the air with a fingertip.

"This way," Hodgins said soberly. The other to caught to his seriousness and soberly followed him from the van they left parked in the street.

"It's getting dark," Angela warned.

"All the more reason," Sweets agreed grimly.

* * *

"Okay great, thanks." Booth nodded to the driver to bring them back to the hotel. He turned the scant few inches to Brennan's face and she turned likewise. The smartass but silent scarred agent scoffed another snicker under his breath at their familiarity. Booth shot him a death glare the man didn't catch as he watched his own screens.

"What's wrong, Booth?" asked Brennan.

"They haven't found her but it looks like the Squints did. They've got a team out there with them now. They say to go back to the hotel and they'll let us know when to get our asses over there." Brennan immediately caught on. Booth wasn't suggesting they retire for the night, but rather catch the little sleep they could before a long night of sleeplessness.

"Okay," she said softly. The van ride was silent for the next couple minutes it took to pull up in front of the hotel. They didn't say much during the scant mouthfuls they forced themselves to eat before slamming the doors to their twin rooms; Brennan to shower and Booth to 'read.' He hated himself for opening that drawer, but knew as soon as he got the day's entry over with, he could sleep that much better.

He almost yanked out the letter this time, loosening his tie and foregoing the bed for his chair in the corner. He dropped into it like a stone and held the letter in two shaking hands before he sighed and turned it over to see the intended recipient.

Booth swallowed. He knew what the title meant to Brennan; she had always been Daddy's little girl. He looked down at the paper that was trembling in his fingers. The address was shakily written as if in anger, or fear, or hate. Or maybe love, and tears and regret. Booth ground his teeth against the lump in his throat; how he wished he could just _ask_ Brennan what it all meant. He was more careful, the words _Letter to a Father_ burning behind his eyelids and out of the corners of his cornea as he flipped the envelope over to slit it open. This wasn't like the other letters in that it was sealed with a sense of ominous finality. The others had been closing chapters of her life; this seemed more like the end of an entire book. The conclusion. The resolution. The book of Revelations; the confusing and muttering fumbles of another, newer, world, the transition still missing in the gaps of the letters' spacing.

Booth took a huge breath as if he were about to dive into a very deep pool before his eyes hungrily gripped the ink like a rock climber, grasping the individual lettering as if he may scale the very foundations of who Brennan was by scrabbling up the cliff face of this monumental diary.

_April 20th, 2000_

Exactly ten years before. The ripe old age of 22. The ripe old age of a heart too battered to masquerade as one so young. God, he had been such a foolish idiot the night they had drunk down that tequila in a rain sheltering bar. He had taken her for innocent, adorable and naïve and in reality she had seen war too, and could match his battle scars. Here she was, a graduate student, probably striving for the first of her three doctorates. He knew that by the time she was 23, she had studied in India and 24, she was world renowned for her work in Latin America.

_Dear Daddy_,

Booth felt his heart wound more piercingly than the shrapnel that had torn his muscles asunder during war, carrying a fallen comrade who had quickly become a dead weight in the sense of carrying a corpse. He suddenly found his compulsive need to swallow was stymied by something very large and very difficult to remove from his airway. He wondered what _he_ would write, given the chance to tell his father what _he _thought. Booth let the letter fall fluttering between his knees and grasped his hair in his hands over his temples. His brains were surely leaking between his fingers; it was a pose he had picked up from Cam. She was always sick of his ego. Now he was sick of it himself.

What was he _doing?_ He knew he would pick that letter back up. He was burning to know what she had told her father so many years before. It gnawed at him. It was an incessant guilty goat chomping on his life. A guilt goat. Booth snorted at the allusion. Illusion? Alliteration? Alliteration - that was it. Damn Bones and her fancy literary terms; they snuck inside his head at the most inopportune of times. She was always berating him, correcting him, fixing him. Even when she wasn't around, she had become his conscience. How rich. His conscience. Like con-_science_. Hey, at least the word had science in it somewhere. She'd like that.

Booth gripped his hair harder. What was _wrong_ with him? Obviously he had gone mad. Not only was he head over heels for his partner, he was making puns to her and she was asleep! Goddamn, he needed his head shrunk. He should talk to Gordon-Gordon when he got back to DC. Or maybe head over to the Georgetown Hospital. Let the medical students play with him. Booth rubbed his hands over his eyes like a cranky three year old child throwing a tantrum.

_Don't pick it up_, he chided but his hands already had plucked it from the ground like a hawk and a newborn gosling. He turned off his brain, or at least tried to. He concentrated his mind on forming the words, getting that unrelenting grip back on the words, climbing and testing his weight on a crux of who his partner was. Who made Bones into Bones. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing. She had said in her previous letter that _he_ had made her into Bones, from Brennan to Bones in a matter of months. Booth squinted. But he hadn't really _made_ her, he, like an anthropologist himself - _archaeologist_ - her snarky little voice corrected, had simply uncovered this other more amenable facet of her personality and blown the dust off of it. He hadn't brought her to life, he had simply reanimated her. He grinned foolishly and unseeingly at the lettering. Brought her back to life. Like a mummy. She would like that. She loved mummies.

He knew he was stalling.

One more swallow.

Damn...the lump...the words...his own father...the belt...the words...the words...focus...Jared...the screams...the words...the words of his mother's suicide note...the words of the last letter...sealed with finality. Booth hissed a huffed breath and let himself rattle for air around the huge lump in his throat. What words? Whose words? What words would he say? And what words would she say?

One way to find out.

_April 20th, 2000_

_ Dear Daddy,_

_ Today is your 50th birthday. I'm sorry you never lived to see it. _

Too hard. This was too hard. Booth forcefully scrubbed his face like a whiny toddler again, the paper rattling against his prominent brow bone. He took a breath. A deep breath that couldn't quite reach the bottom of his lungs. They had been cinched off with those little annoying plastic things that rooted all of Parker's action figures into the boxes. The kind used to handcuff guys when handcuffs weren't there. The impossible to break cinches.

_Or at least, I assumed you are no longer living. However, since I no longer believe in sentient ability, _- no longer believe? Booth had to wonder at that but couldn't pause, his death grip on the lettering was propelling him forward too fast - _I feel this letter rather moronic to write. That is unusual for me; I am not used to being anything but exceptional. _

He almost smiled. Almost; the moon was glaring at him.

_If you don't know anything about me, I am now a graduate student pursuing a dual doctorate at Northwestern University. I was given a copious and advantageous scholarship and accepted it with gratitude. I work as a lab technician on the side and as a cocktail waitress. _

What. The. F- Booth censored himself. Brennan didn't like it when he was obscene.

_ I make a reasonable amount of tips, but I seem to alienate my graduate co-workers and occasionally upset the customers when I inform them of their norepinephrine receptors. However, I believe my physiological beauty makes up for it with this ridiculous costume I am forced to assume. As for school, I quite enjoy my work. I have decided to become an anthropologist. Before you chide me on choosing a simplistic and soft science, I wish to explain my reasoning and to assure you I have chosen to join the profession of medical anthropology with a focus in forensics. _

_ I have no wish to join something so mundane as a task force or something equally ridiculous such as a sociologist studying cultural norms, but rather culture from hundreds of years before and the focus on the similarities and differences. My reasoning is sound. I postulate by understanding human behavior, it will adequately prepare the scientific world - which stands as a backer for the political one - to better guide humanity. The origin of species is utterly fascinating and the humanoid skulls I often assemble hold infinitely more enjoyment and excitement than any form of particle physics or theoretical work ever did. However, as you taught me, I keep my horizons wide and keep up with the latest scientific findings in numerous physics, medical, and engineering journals. _

_ As for my schooling, you will be happy to note that I excelled in college and sped through fairly quickly to become a graduate student. I've received numerous grants, scholarships and internships for my exceptional academic ability and worldly application. Although I am an anathema and did not enjoy the 'college experience' that most Americans seem so keen to inherently value, I am rarely lonely and find occasional company through my peers, though no one of interest. _

_ No, I have not pursued any relationships. _Booth grinned to realize this would be the year that she would lose her virginity; then he scowled to realize it would be to her thesis professor. _I rarely find enough to eat, much less have time to find enough for two people. It's not terribly difficult to subsist on one meal of cafeteria food a day - which is what my scholarship provides - but is incredibly inconvenient to only eat the same foods day after day. I suppose I shouldn't complain; there have been days at a time when I haven't had one thing to eat, much to your disapproval I'm sure. I hardly have enough money for rent and my textbooks. Over winter break, were it not for the offhand offering of company, I might have been in dire straights. As it is, I am perfectly conditioned to go for up to three days without nourishment._

Booth found himself seething. This was unacceptable. How did no one _see_? How did no one notice her stuffing herself? How did no one realize her thin frame was from malnourishment and not an athletic physique? He found himself swearing he would have noticed and then remembered who he had been in college. No one. A dead head. It was what had motivated him to join the army. He realized that just as he had been stalling earlier in reading her letter, here she was building up to what she wanted to say to her father, what she needed to say.

_If you are wondering, I do not hate you. I cannot hate you_. Well, she was more evolved than Booth was, that was for damn sure. Hatred bubbled beneath his surface so often it scared him.

_You were...are...my father. I cannot resent you for leaving, for dying. It was sudden. It was unexpected. _

_ I only remember Russ' face. I only remember the neighbor's wails. It played over, and over, and over in my mind. I went shopping Christmas Eve alone, to find a gift for Russ, unable to comprehend what had happened. All I could think was this unending mantra as I stared at other faces. They were calm, or if not, frantic with a frenetic light of festive cheer. They were last minute Christmas shopping out of laziness or hard work, out of time inefficiency or hurried munificence. I felt as if I moved in a tiny unclean bubble, my hands welded to the metal bars of the shopping cart. _

_ My father died yesterday. My father died yesterday. Today is Christmas Eve and my father died yesterday. _

_ Over, and over, and over, it repeated. I did not think of you leaving. I could not think of you abandoning us. You loved Christmas. You loved it. But I could not imagine our family being broken up out of greed or mercenary or even protectiveness; there was never such a family as ours. I believe that, though it may be statistically impossible. Improbable, I should say. Yet our family was different. Russ and I were very close and rarely fought. You loved Mom like a prince loved his fairy tale wife. We lived in a suburban house with a picket fence. We were exceptional children. I had friends and you and Mom still engaged in date like qualities when you went out to eat. We were the family...the stuff of myths. The people who everyone envied. And I never thought twice. _

_ Then, while shopping, this horrible scene playing through my head, staring at stupid, stupid ties while Russ' wet brown eyes, his gaping face, his fingers that grasped my skin and left bruises in my arms...it danced, it wavered and flickered before me like a candle flame. I did not weep. I could not weep. It was unreal. Unimaginable. I was trying to buy a Christmas present when there was no Christmas tomorrow. No, Christmas could not be tomorrow. Maybe you were simply gone. Maybe when you disappeared the sixteenth, and your car was found yesterday...you had walked away after the crash. The blood wasn't real. You would be down the stairs tomorrow, drinking your coffee and pretending to your two elder teenage children that "Santa" had struck again. I then wondered, and I remember holding socks, if I should put out cookies...as if the smell could possibly entice you to come home. _

Booth felt literally sick to his stomach. He heaved himself trembling to his feet, his fingers still grasping the letter. He felt weak and shaky inside. Even the letter addressed to himself hadn't affected him this way. Usually his responses were visceral, but nothing like this. He bent over, feeling as if he were about to heave. He looked around his boxy little hotel room. He wanted to hurt the windows, but his arms were quivering the way they had been when he had sat, cold and white, outside the hospital, hearing the stupid pump pumping away at his mother's lifeless stomach. Booth wanted to rip up the letter, to burn it, to burn the way Brennan had felt that day. That groggy, awful, dreamlike day. That nightmarish day. That day without tears, without belief, with an angry sobbing brother who was on the cusp of adulthood and suddenly terrified with no one to show him the way. He wanted to trample the impersonal sound of police radios crackling through teenage Tempe's empty house. He wanted to sit down and cry, so that's what he did.

But like Tempe, the tears wouldn't come. He sat numbly against the bedskirt, staring at the dresser knobs and seeing only that long ago rack of ties. My God. He crossed himself with trembling fingers and picked up the pages. They were not smeared with tears like some of the others had been; the writing was crisp. Her mouth probably firm and set. She had rationalized this. Categorized it. That was worse than any bitter hatred. _Hatred. _An ugly, ugly word. Booth realized that's what he was feeling. That sick, slinking, shaky feeling that was so beyond and unlike anger. It was hate. It was disgust. It was loathing and abhorrence and the need for annihilation. It wasn't directed exactly towards Max because he knew the sound reasoning behind it. But it wasn't directed away from him either; part of him felt the way little Tempe did. The way this woman Temperance...22...was writing it. The side of her without answers. The side of her that wouldn't have answers for another six years.

It was hatred at the world. It was revulsion at society. It was outrage at the shoppers. It was contempt at the way the world worked.

It was agony.

It was despair.

Booth put his head into his hands and shook with it, feeling it poison him not with an avenging light, but with a destroying one. Though usually afire to correct past wrongs when reading her letters, like an avenging angel come back to life, here the Angel of Death slunk from the pages and shuttered into his mind.

_Then I had to realize, as I stood in a long line that seemed unendurable - yet the alternative was to return to an empty house (though even that became preferable to what soon was unending foster care) - that I may pass those people every day. Those people who stare at ties to bury their husband in. Or their brother. Or their son. Those people with empty smiles at the cash register whose son must have been snatched by a cartel from a third world country. How many people shop for Christmas gifts for people who no longer exist? Or have to, as we did, unwrap, one by one, the gifts we gave to you? To open the perfume Russ had saved up to buy Mom. To realize the amount of effort I put into your gift was wasted under the tree? To open up endless clothes. To open up calendars and pictures and music boxes and jewelry. To open up the artwork, the science, the awards I never showed you two, so excited to make it a surprise. Now I realize you'll never see it. Never saw it. Never realized what I achieved. Never realized how much I cared. How much I tried. How much I loved. _

_ It's all different now. _

_ It's been so long and yet it seems that every Christmas I'm staring at ties. It's why I flee to the Southern Hemisphere full of the dead, to give closure to those where I can garner none. It isn't so alienating to be the alien, believe it or not. It's alienating to be among people just like yourself (relatively and not academically speaking), and realize no one can see you. That's the most isolating. To be amidst a crowd and realize two people, two parents, a whole family can go missing overnight, and there will still be police captains and coroners enjoying their holidays and shopping on Christmas Eve for their own families. They may have been right behind me; the technicians who combed the car may have breathed down my neck at the cashier's line and we could have never known what we had in common: his job and my entire world. He could have been buying the tie I bought for Russ. I don't know. It hurts too much to care. _

_Dad, I could write you a whole letter about how much I loved you. About how I was your little girl, and admittedly, your favorite child. We had so much in common. We did so much together. You were my little league coach. You helped with my homework. You taught me how to kick hard. You taught me how to fight. You taught me how to stand on my own and before I was ready, you let go of that bike seat. And I had to learn to steer or crash. And I wanted so badly to look back, but that meant that I would lose the control I tenuously grasped, and swerve into oblivion. I wanted to see your proud face; instead I only saw the oncoming obstacles of a cobblestone path. Remember that day?_

_ Remember that lifetime?_

_ I'm sorry you never had a cake so laden with candles you couldn't blow them all out as you used to brag about; I had always counted on that. But know I always would have helped you blow the candles out without complaint. _

_ The funeral...the funeral without the bodies...the memorial...the service...it was a blur, it was awful, it was full of religious crap and inconsistencies. It was full of wailing friends and a grieving brother. It was full of people living their lives and feeling the world. It was full of people and I was alone and no one looked twice at me. I didn't cry. At least I don't think so. And I was cold. It was the first time you could call me cold; I was always your little fireball. Now I'm a cold fish. _

_ I'm sorry we never found the end of a rainbow. I'm so sorry you never saw me complete acceptable social mores such as high school graduation, college, graduate school and my eventual (in all probability) matrimony. Now I no longer believe in the fairy tale fallacy you so blasély crammed down my throat with the story of you and Mom. I don't know what to believe. _

_ I'm sorry, I didn't write this letter to be bitter. _

_ I wrote it to bid you farewell. _

_ It's time to stop looking Daddy. It's time to stop hoping. Because a part of me always believes that you're here with me. _

_ "I am," you would smile and say, cuffing my heart. But you aren't. Because as much as you may believe, a memory of your hugging me goodnight is not the same. Your voice, when you had one, is no longer as real. Your 'I love you' cannot linger in the air. Goodbye, I love you. _

_ As always, your girl._

_ Tempe. _

Booth realized he was crying and swiped at his tears. He climbed guiltily into bed and stuffed the letter into the Bible with the others he had already read. He burrowed under the covers shaking with rage, and hate and loss. He shed no more tears for her tragedy; he was too busy trying to keep the door slammed shut against his own. He shuddered in his bed, unknowing that across the hall, she shivered awake in her own.

It was Russ' birthday and she had sent him a tie.

* * *

**In Memorium.**


	8. And She Fears If She Cries

**As always, this has been a chapter of building over several days, a page here, two there, blah blah. Please review; I'm always moved by your sweet and sincere comments.**

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Cam awoke with a groan and a hail of curse words. Her mother would have popped her one good if she had been alive to hear them. Cam drew in a deep lancing breath she immediately regretted. The dry coating of her tongue had her coughing uncontrollably, and her coughing brought about a pain so acute above her heart, for several seconds while she fought retching, Cam seriously feared having a heart attack at 34. Her shirt was all bunched up under her stomach and with a strange disorientation, she realized the grainy substance wasn't the overhead sky, but rather the sandy grit beneath her face. She was facedown on her stomach. She tried moving and regretted that more than breathing, letting loose three whimpers, two separate tears and twenty six curses that strung along the alphabet, vaguely skipping over the harder letters. After she was finished with her tirade, she took stock as she achingly flipped onto her side and fell the rest of the way with a lung crushing _oomf_ to her back. She stared at the low ceiling. It came to her in pieces.

She had been running in the early morning and she had seen a little stream; it was such a nice change from the congested traffic around her home in DC, she had decided to run in the gentle grass instead of along the beaten dirt road. It had been a poorly thought out decision because she had accumulated such a nice thicket of stickers, she had sat down on a rock to pull them off, cursing, with a nearby leaf so they wouldn't imbed their tiny spines into the delicate pads of her fingers or into the tender flesh under her cuticles. With the motion, she had realized she was sitting outside little more than a burrow, just tall enough to be considered a cave by children.

"Why?" she asked the ceiling with a sadistic sort of humor, gesturing inanely at it; one of her collarbones made Cam so nauseated, she suspended all thought on the hope she wouldn't have to lay in a pool of her own sick. She didn't have to be a doctor to know it was fractured, and very likely snapped cleanly in two.

It came to her in a flash: the bandana. Of course. The boy they had identified had been wrapped up in something bigger than himself and it had gotten him killed. Booth had managed to sniff up drugs in the Show Circuit. Cam wasn't surprised. Horse mothers were equally as vicious, if not more so because of their inherent affluence, than cheerleading mothers. The competition was more than between horse and rider; it was between factions and barns. Somehow the stable boy had either been a mule for a drug ring, or had accidentally stumbled into a whole other kind of ribbons. He had always worn a red bandana around his neck; his father had given it to him. It had even, Cam remembered, been in both the missing persons file and the sketch Angela had drawn for the grieving family to identify their son, added in afterwards as a sign of commemoration.

The scrap of red had brought her to the shelf by the little brook; there had been a crumble, a bang and she had woken up, sprawled on her stomach, in the dark. She gingerly touched in front of her, dismayed to find her old shirt in tatters. Something wet came up in her hand. Blood.

It was light enough in the little hollow of the cave for her to both realize how lucky she was to be alive, and to see that there was a shelf of rock behind her, preventing more collapse. She squinted in the semi darkness and looked down with a groan, the sunlight filtering through the chinks in the rough ceiling enough for her to realize she had skinned most of her stomach. Cam swallowed. Skinning her knees as a restless kid was one thing, but skinning her abdomen clean was quite another. She also saw her shoulder had swollen up around the puffy bruise of her broken collarbone. She grunted and reached for her cell phone. After a few frantic gestures she heard it ring. Under the pile of rocks. Predictable.

Though not an engineer, Cam knew enough about structural integrity to know when _not_ to dig through a rock pile threatening collapse. She groaned and sat up, cursing her ill fortune and felt the familiar tickle of panic flickering through her gut. She tamped it down like a damp cloth over a candle in order to make a list. _First off_, she sighed, looking down at herself, _I need to do something about..._this. Though no one else was around, she found herself still gesturing at her bloody front. She struggled out of her oversized shirt and realized with almost burning mortification she was left in lycra spandex and a coral sports bra. The paramedics were going to have a field day. She supposed it could have been worse; she could have impaled herself in the shower or something equally depressing and strangely hilarious.

Tearing her old t-shirt into strips was far easier one-handed than she had anticipated. Using her teeth as an anchor, Cam peeled off her shoes and socks. Using the socks, she spat upon them and wiped the crusted blood and dirt away as well as she could. She almost moaned at how unhygienic it was, but rolled her eyes at her options. Padding her collarbone with her sole supporting socks, she made a sling from the majority of the fabric before wrapping tattered shreds around her scraped ribs and stomach to keep the bloody scratches from accumulating more debris that would be excruciating to dig out with forceps.

She tied the fabrics together with her shoe laces and awkwardly forced the shoes back onto her sweating feet; the cave was broiling. She found herself dizzy and nauseated from the exercise, and, with the adrenaline failing her, she slowly slumped against the wall with the most holes in the ceiling, nearest the air and closest to the stone to avoid being buried alive. She could think...later.

* * *

"You don't think..." winced Sweets, gesturing towards the tiny rock slide. Angela ran forward, already shrieking with her usual flagrance for propriety.

"Cam! Cam are you in there?" To their infinite surprise a muffled 'yes' issued from behind the tunnel.

"What do we do?" panted Sweets, nearly hysterical and grabbing his head of curly hair. Hodgins glared at him from the corner of his eye, looking like he wanted nothing more than to smack him soundly across the face.

"Call Booth. Call the FBI team. Get a crane, a digger, a shovel or a sand castle set, but get somebody else out here to help us start digging."

"I'll call anyone but Booth," agreed Sweets instantly, leaving Hodgins to shove his phone in his back pocket and dig his hands, claw like, into the soil next to Angela, all the while calling to Cam on the other side, his heart pounding more than he had anticipated upon finding his friend alive.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine," came the muffled reply. "I broke my collarbone in the fall, but otherwise..." she trailed off as if suddenly embarrassed.

"Are you sick, dizzy?" Angela immediately demanded.

"No. I'm okay."

"That's good," Angela enthused, patting a little pile of dirt before flinging it energetically behind her like a spastic battery wound bunny, "that's really good. We were so worried!"

"How long did it take you to find me?"

"A while," Hodgins coughed hoarsely, inhaling a powdery pile of dust. "It was your sun shoes that gave it away." There was weak laughter inside.

"Of all the stupid people, it had to be me," she groaned; her voice wasn't getting any closer.

There was a slamming of several doors at one time and Hodgins and Angela stumbled aside when the agents pushed them aside.

"Ma'am!" called one, "Are you all right?" Hodgins choked into his own scruff when he could hear a very garbled version of what Cam thought of the address of 'ma'am.' While Cam assured them she was fine, several of the unit began unearthing shovels, and several men began to dig ferociously, as if Cam were the prize in the bottom of a box of _Cracker Jacks_. Mutely, Angela dug Hodgins' phone from his pocket, making him swallow his suddenly dry mouth, and handed it to him, with eyes that begged him to take the brunt of Booth's fury.

Surprisingly, Booth was relatively calm about the whole thing. It would be hours before they could get far enough inside to pull her out; there were intermittent rocks and the brook had cemented the soil into hard spun clay, blocking the entrance more effectively than any shovel could clear.

The FBI unit called for jackhammers and sledgehammers in order to clear the clay in heavy blocks. Hodgins settled down, hand in Angela's to wait out of the way. By 1:30 am the site was well lit and swarming with people. Hodgins, Sweets and Angela were all huddled on a nearby log sipping hot tea that had been brought out in a carafe. Booth and Brennan were on their way; it wouldn't be long before they could get Cam out.

"How is she?" demanded Booth; Brennan was right behind him as always, hovering at his elbow, looking as if someone had graced her with a sickly pallor and two black eyes. Her sleeplessness was evident to everyone. Booth wore his better.

"She can talk," sighed Sweets, as if she were dying. Booth looked terrified before Angela took pity upon him. "She's fine. She's pissed and embarrassed but fine." Booth heaved a huge breath, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Brennan.

"That's good Booth," she assured him, as if he had been asking her a question. In reality, he had been worried about her. The wide awake and stunned look reminded him forcibly of war. She limped forward, and leaned heavily on the log, the backs of her legs hitting the bark. Booth swallowed; her ankle was hurting her. He could tell.

"How's the ankle Bones?" he attempted for cheerful, but the withering glare she gave him clearly told him she hadn't wanted the others being reminded of it.

"Sweetie, maybe you should rest," Angela consoled her.

Luckily, Brennan was saved an answer by the sudden onslaught of noise. There was a crumble of rock and a declaration of several men shouting in triumph. Booth was halfway across the site before Hodgins had so much as stood up.

"No, I want to go in first!" The Squints sidled up to find Booth arguing forcibly with the head of the paramedic team. "I'll bring her back out. She's like family."

"Sir, let us do our job," the man was yelling. Unseen, Hodgins slipped his hand into Angela's. In turn, she grabbed Sweets who beckoned subtly to Dr. Brennan.

Together the lab, single file, filtered into the mouth of the cave, unseen and unstopped by the two arguing men. Hodgins started laughing when he saw her. Half naked and mussed, Cam still made a half terrifying and half comedic figure, propped against a rock, arm in a makeshift sling, and her taut stomach stretched to a beautiful and baffling coral sports bra. Her little frame was all akimbo, her feet stuck into unlaced sneakers and her peppy ponytail now wilted like the hairdo of a child after a particularly fast carousel ride. She was still delivering a ferocious glower towards the muffled giggles of her team. She held her hand out to Angela as Brennan grinned a half cocky grin she had clearly picked up from her partner.

"Help me up," she growled.

"So you can put on some clothes?" asked Angela sweetly, with a wicked smile of her own. Cam groaned and froze, her tiny frame showing every rib and every ripple of muscle. All of her muscles tensed in concordance, a fraction of a second before Hodgins, Angela, Sweets and Brennan all froze as well.

"Get out!" snapped Brennan, her voice harsh and distorted. They all heard the panicked cries that were accompanying the crumbling of gravel slowly raining onto their stupefied, upturned faces.

"Bones!" screamed another voice, having heard her snapped mandate. His voice was rather good at masking his panic but the fear still lanced through the lab as Angela tripped and fell to the ground, her hand ripped from Hodgins.

"Angela!" he called, immediately felled like a tree to his knees next to her, dragging her back up. Booth was hurtling down the passage, bouncing off the sides like an overwrought toy, not noticing the eventual bruising as he careened, hands out like bumpers, to get his people. Brennan was at the fore, her ankle thick and cumbersome as she attempted to lead the way without getting in the way. Booth hardly saw anyone's face, and his face clearly said it all. He slammed his grasping hands into the flesh of Brennan's arm before tightening it into a painful vise.

"Bones, let's go." Half carrying her, face grim, he yanked her off first from the tunnel, ignoring her protests as he simply flexed slightly and she was in his arms as he sprinted forward. Brennan was screaming in his ear as he finally comprehended, glancing back at the injured but stalwart Cam before he yanked Cam's fragile wrist forward, stumbling.

Then all went black.

* * *

"Sir! Sir are you okay?" Booth felt the grit of the floor burning into his facial muscles. He squinted hazy eyes around him; the floor was really shiny. The lights bathing them were beautiful.

"Bones," he grunted, trying to lever himself up. His arms came; his legs didn't. Panicked at the horrors he had seen, Booth turned back, sure to find his spine cut or his legs crushed. He was almost relieved to find himself buried waist deep in soil. Then his fuzzy eyes shot open again.

"BONES!"

"I'm here Booth," someone with her voice said and shoes stopped in front of his nose. One ankle was bandaged and bulky. He grasped it, hearing her hissing breath, and was reassured. He followed her legs up only to realize she was wearing jeans - when had she changed? - and saw her furious face glaring down at him. He let his cheek drop back to the soil, relief pinning him down more effectively than the collapse. She was safe. He had saved her. He had carried her and she had lived. That made one then. One soldier he had saved.

Guilt and exhaustion forced little leaks to the dust; he wasn't crying. Not quite.

"So glad you're okay," he mumbled, shrugging his shoulders as a means of swiping at those stupid tears with the sleeve of his shirt. He jerked his head up again, craning around. "Was I the last one out? Where's Cam? Where's the lab? Sweets?"

Her face crumpled and Booth started trying to heave himself out with so much might, he thought he might burst several blood vessels in his brain.

"Is she in here? Did I do this? Is she okay?"

"Jesus, you are such a baby," came Cam's voice and Booth swung his head around, relieved, guilty and about to chew the muddy clay in front of him in both frustrated anger and shaky tears.

"Cam? Cam? Where are you?"

"Behind you." Booth twisted around but couldn't see anything.

"Huh?"

"She's still inside, genius," issued Hodgins' disgruntled voice.

"Hey," protested Booth. But he couldn't think up a rejoinder fast enough before his brain caught up with Brennan's _very_ dissatisfied face. "What?"

"They're _all_ inside," she informed him. Her injured foot started to tap the way Angela's did when she was angry. Brennan winced as she almost lost her balance and quickly stopped.

"_What_?"

"Yes," she scrunched her face up irritably. "This is _your_ fault."

"My fault!" he screeched. "I saved your life!" Her face did that thing he had never before been able to peg: a quick flash of pain followed by a hell of a lot of obstinate irritation. Now he knew she was simply covering up her fear and her hatred of being weak.

"You have trapped my entire forensics team inside a cave."

"There are other Squints," he grunted out, trying to wriggle from his position. No dice. He was forced, like a beached manatee, to try to flail and talk to her while laying encased in a ton of clay from the waist down. Booth felt his eyes go wide. What if he had to pee? Instantly Niagra Falls sprang to mind. If he hadn't before, now he did. God he hated his mind sometimes.

"But my people are the best!" she protested.

"Thanks Sweetie," called Angela and Brennan shrugged.

"Well, except maybe Angela."

"Hey!"

"But her innovations and insights are often useful," his partner conceded thoughtfully and her face spasmed back into anger. "So yes, you _did _ take away my best people. We'll have to call in the interns."

"No!" moaned Hodgins inside the cave. "The guy who works under me is _useless_."

"Thank Agent Booth for that," Brennan said scathingly, stalking away, phone already in hand.

"Crap," muttered Booth. He experimentally wiggled his feet. "Can you see my feet?" A resounding chorus of 'no's' ranging from desperate to flat out irked rang out.

"Super," enthused Cam, sounding anything but thrilled. "I'm injured and stuck in a cave where I'll have to pee in front of other people I have to see at work every day."

"Thanks for the visual," muttered Sweets.

"You think _you've _got it bad," griped Booth. There was silence before awkward laughter tittered amongst them.

"How long you think we'll be in here?" asked Angela. The site grew quiet. "Hello?" Angela called again, frustrated. Booth felt for her.

"It'll at least take all night," Booth answered her.

"Probably longer," said a nearby technician. "Agent Booth, it'll be at least three hours before we can clearly excavate you."

"WHAT?" demanded Booth. "Why? Just dig me out and we're good to go!"

"The clay is too hard to dig by hand, and if we drill incorrectly we could hit your leg and shatter it." Booth shuddered. "And," continued the technician as if this weren't enough, "Not only do we have to worry about our digging you out causing deeper landslides onto the other members of your team, but also if we dig willy-nilly, more dirt could crush your ribcage."

"It's not _dirt_," Booth heard Hodgins mutter between clenched teeth.

"Willy-nilly?" muttered Booth.

"Give us an estimate," Sweets said in his best professional shrink voice.

"With the proper imaging equipment we will need to bring in, at least until tomorrow evening."

"24 hours!" shrieked Cam.

"Not quite," corrected the tech blithely. Somewhere there was a frustrated moan and a sound like a head slamming into dirt.

"Don't do that," came Hodgins' quiet voice and Booth raised his eyebrows to realize that guttural sound had issued from Angela's throat.

"Well," stormed Brennan, marching back over and squatting next to Booth's face. "I have Wendell coming in for Hodgins."

"He isn't an entomologist!" ground out Hodgins.

"He'll be supervising and communicating with you," Brennan called. "I figured since you two are friends..." she trailed off uncertainly.

"You did good Bones," Booth gave her his best reassuring smile. She didn't look like she trusted him, but her icy routine melted a little and she let him grab her hand. Their eyes had one of those conversations Booth always pretended he understood but really just left him feeling molten inside.

"I did _well_," she corrected stubbornly. Booth dropped her hand as a means of underscoring his muttered,

"Just drop it."

"If I dropped all semblance of grammar, we wouldn't have an understandable language and without language society would devolve into-"

"Who'd you bring in for me?" Cam interrupted and Booth breathed out.

"Ms. Wick." Booth could _almost_ hear the unspoken scream that was bit off out of respect for Sweets.

"I see," Cam said in a tight voice, breathing out. "Well, we haven't many options."

"I brought in Clark to assist me personally and Fisher to oversee excavation; he has the most paleontological experience."

"What about Arastoo and Nigel-Murray?" asked Cam in a muffled voice.

"Mr. Nigel-Murray is not in the country at the moment and Arastoo is busy with his taxes."

"Whoa," said Booth.

"Whoa?" Brennan asked with a puzzled expression.

"You sure that's what he said? Busy with his taxes?"

"Yes, why?"

"Ooh, I smell a government conspiracy."

"Much as I hate to agree with Hodgins Bones, that's pretty much it. When you're working on something for Big Brother, you're doing your taxes."

"But I do my taxes every year." Booth rolled his eyes and didn't bother to bicker.

"She is wicked literal," said Sweets. Brennan looked hurt and down at her stranded partner.

"What'd I say?"

"Never mind, can you get that thingy you used by the fountatin thingy?"

"_What_?" she exclaimed, looking irritated with his lack of titular knowledge.

"You know," he rejoined, exasperated. "The thingy you push like a lawnmower but...but with a television in it." Brennan gave him a long unreadable glance before her face flooded with understanding.

"Oh. Yes, I'll ask Wendell to bring it down."

"Let's get cracking!" smiled the lead technician, clapping his hands together.

Booth winced at the imagery.

"Outstanding," he griped.

* * *

"Go home Agent Booth," urged the technician. Booth stopped guiltily rubbing his eyes for the hundredth time. He snorted his derision at the colloquial and inaccurate use of the word 'home.' Jesus, now he was turning into Bones.

"Seriously Booth," echoed Hodgins. "We will be _fine._"

"Go on now Seeley," chorused Cam, irritating him just for the fun of it. Booth knew they all had to yell to be heard. Otherwise, the conversations that went on inside that cave were private. Booth felt his teeth hit just a little more of an edge as he paced. When he had first been excavated, his blood flow had become so restricted, he couldn't stand. Now he paced obsessively, reveling both in the rugged feel of striding and the exhausted buzz of insomnia prodding him forward. Brennan had retired at seven to sleep for about two hours before setting up the dig site for the interns to pace about.

"I..." he trailed off as his shoulders slumped. He gritted his jaw a little more firmly. "I'll be back in one hour. One. Hour." Before they could protest, he was already in his car and speeding recklessly back to the hotel. He screeched to a stop in front of it and jumped out. He realized he was right in someone's way as he tried to brush past them to get into the doors.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"Booth?" asked Brennan's voice. His dull eyes focused a little and realized her face was right next to his, staring anxiously at him out of impossibly blue eyes.

"Hey, Bones, didn't see ya there."

"Didn't see me? I am less than-"

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" he asked curtly, too tired to be polite. She wasn't offended at all, either purposefully ignoring his slip or not programmed to pick up on unsubtle hints such as that one.

"I'm going there now. Booth, are you all right?"

"Just tired."

"One night shouldn't do so much -" she started but he was already walking. He turned around unwillingly as he waited for the elevator. She was standing, a half hurt and half bewildered but angry expression on her face.

"I'm tired," he repeated; he could hardly think.

"Is this my fault?" she asked blandly. Booth snapped that she could even think that.

"No! It's mine!" She strode over to him and ignored the open elevator, holding his arm back so he couldn't embark and thus escape.

"Your fault? Booth you saved my life."

"I almost ended your life," he grated out. "God," he wiped a hand over his forehead and eyes, stopping at the bridge of his nose to rest in a vise, pinching so hard, he could feel little wrinkles under his fingers folding up the skin. "I am such an idiot."

There was acute silence before her unwilling answer was wrung from her. "Most of the time, yes."

Booth burst out laughing and she too, grinned shyly, glad she could humor him from his funk. "Bones, you always know what to say." Her grin grew brighter and pinker as her eyes fell from his serious dark eyes to his grimly set mouth.

"That's an erroneous statement. I very rarely guess what the correct thing to say is."

"You can always ask me."

"Except when I'm talking to you." Booth laughed but his eyes didn't.

"No, I'm serious Bones. You can ask me anything. Anytime. You don't have to hide from me." He wasn't sure what he was saying, but he could feel his eyes confessing at her. She looked stunned and for a heart rending second, he was sure she understood. But then her scared face carefully hitched her Bones persona back over her Brennan core.

"All right then. What should I say to someone who is obviously _not_ sleeping to make them feel better without coming off as completely condescending?" Booth grinned his little boy's grin at the floor, scuffing a foot. She was so great. Irritating as hell, but great.

"That's a tough one. Usually the social standard is to ask if there's anything you can do, but that sounds pretty lame. I guess...offer a specific thing to do without giving them much of a choice?" He let his voice trail up in a question as well to demonstrate he wasn't ever as sure as he seemed. She smiled back.

"Then after everyone is dug out today, you and I are going out to dinner and I guarantee I will get you into bed." Booth felt his jaw hit the floor before he laughed. Poor Brennan, making sexual innuendos without meaning to. Or, so he thought until she opened her mouth again. "I'll try to wear pants this time." Booth felt his broad back being pushed into the suddenly vacated elevator as she waved over her shoulder as she spun off, leaving him more disoriented than before.

He fell into bed, mind still imploding at the imagery. But nothing could sustain him for long. He was asleep in seconds as the last waking vision was of the clock: 9:09am. Cute.

* * *

Booth came screaming awake, realizing that horrible feeling of choking came with crying in his sleep. He had been sobbing, holding the broken body of his brother - that much he could remember of the vague and terrifying nightmare - and in reality his breath had stopped coming regularly, creating the oppressive sense of panic at the lack of oxygen. He dropped his head between his hands, feeling it pound, rubbing a hand over his heart. He ached all over. His hips and legs were undoubtedly black and blue. He winced as he tried to stand, so severely crippled he had to hobble feebly to the nearest dresser full of advil. His head ached like the worst hangover he had ever had. The room was too bright. Everything was too bright. He headed to the bathroom to shower before waking a little beneath the ice cold spray. He didn't bother turning it hot; the cold dampened the flame of his muscles. He knew he should soak, but was too tightly wound both in sleep and in waking with worry. He squinted at the clock, worried he would be late. He had to blink three times to realize it said 9:24. He checked to make sure it was morning. It still was. Exactly 15 minutes. He felt like lukewarm death, lacking the passion to even pick one side or the other.

He lay back on the bed, less achy but still hobbling to rest again. It was easy to slip back to sleep. Within six more minutes he realized he was stuck in the same dream he had just jerked himself from. Booth shook himself awake again, panting. He needed to stay awake. Sleep was too frightening. He could go back to the dig site but it was the same, the waiting, either here or there. But here there was more interesting things to look at than rocks. Booth didn't even try to dissuade himself this time. Better her nightmares than his own.

He grimaced at the title. _Letter to an editor_.

This one sounded nasty. Another stranger. Another case of casual heartbreak. Only this heart had been previously pulverized and was carelessly crushed again.

_ November 4th, 2003_

Booth's eyes widened at the different format. Lines were crossed out and rewritten, hastily scrawled and cramped and as he attempted to decipher it, squinting at the page up close and turning his head, he also realized, this was the first letter not penned premeditavely. This letter was on a napkin. Booth grinned a lopsided smile; he recognized the feel of it. It was from their diner. The diner that was hers long before it was his.

_To my first attempt at a manuscript. _

_ Thank you for your cruelty. _

_The thing about job interviews_

_is they happen in too bright places._

_Places that make you clutch your head_

_but not really, just on the inside. _

_Places where the fluorescents flush the faces_

_seafoam green and sickly_

_like cancer. _

_It's where we go when we are young_

_our hearts still bursting full of dreams_

_like gold in a pirate's chest._

_And we're only a third of the way, _

_a fourth of the way, through our lives_

_and yet we are so tired, so very tired. _

_Like we've been sprinting to catch up_

_and finally we caught up to the endless_

_trod and sludge and trudge with the masses._

_We were in such a hurry to grow up Peter Pan. _

_Why didn't you stop us Peter?_

_To die would be an awfully big adventure._

_We lived in a world full of dreams - lived_

_and that sprint has pumped us full of them. _

_Life isn't fair people tell us_

_and yet, and yet, we still believe it is somehow_

_cosmic balance and all. _

_And then, and then…_

_Our treasure chests of dreams_

_are suddenly looted, vandalized_

_like empty castles in the sky._

_Because in this world the "real" world,_

_dreams are like Eleanor's haunted cup of stars;_

_where apples are pitch black_

_instead of Snow White._

_Where there are seasons of love_

_but not years of it._

_Where worlds are close but worlds away._

_And accomplished doesn't quite brush elbows_

_with accredited._

_Where Angels are demons, or sometimes vampires_

_and everyone loves them and dreams of death._

_And if wedding vows were woven of songs, _

_they'd be more binding._

_Run. Burn. Breathe. Single syllabic commands._

_The words our souls are too scared to say._

_Brutally brash but believable. _

_Honest._

_Not like our dreams that live _

_in orthodontic smiles of Cheshire cats_

_on Christmas cards of people we forget._

_Or when we go to college and college things happen._

_And who will we tell? It was college, we console ourselves._

_Everyone goes to college now. _

_And here is a world where people_

_who have never lived are revered like Paul_

_and those of us who have, who've lived hard and died hard _

_we are thrust leaf blowers and turbans,_

_meth labs and People magazine _

_with wagging fingers like Mozart metronomes._

_The white man's burden, they tell us;_

_we know better than you in our one language._

_Be like this, they laugh and we laugh too._

_Laugh like a house fell on us and all we saw coming_

_were red ruby shoes._

_Where we watch stars dance_

_behind a sheet of plexi glass pixels,_

_their dreams untouchable._

_And even those stars with faces like jokers_

_break their backs and are sleepless in cities_

_full of caffeine._

_Sometimes, we never realize things like_

_Romeo knew Juliet three days._

_And they say a lot can happen, can change_

_in three days. A lifetime can happen._

_Or that's what they say when they hand you_

_the tricolored triangle flag after all those gunshots._

_As if that's what we needed to hear._

_The gunshots like our dreams shattering in a drive by._

_Oh we want our dreams,_

_want them like one wuthering heights_

_and not two towers,_

_Until all you are left with is ground zero._

_And you stand, shaking, your dreams swelling inside you,_

_swelling across the page in your hand; bursting through the ink._

_And the office smells like cheap pastrami – _

_the kind that comes in packages where the slices_

_are laid out like playing cards._

_And you swallow, clutching that résumé, _

_that field of dreams, and they take it from you._

_They take it from you and rip it apart. _

_This is dream country said the BFG, _

_This is where dreams are born. _

_You look around that office, the sickly, smelly office_

_You've worked and ran your whole life for._

_The shreds and slats of that field of dreams, that treasure chest_

_That cup of stars, that blanket of yours, that hope_

_That love, that piece of you on the ground, dying in the lettering._

_And interviews, _

_Interviews are where dreams come to die. _

Booth didn't know what to say; he had read Brennan's books, yet this cruel satiric side of her, carefully peppered with undoubtedly researched popular culture was both biting and honest. She had woven her soul into words through that book, regardless of what she said, and hinged all her hopes upon a foolish - in her eyes - wish. She had gambled when she wasn't a gambler, and she had lost, reinforcing the standard. 'Stick to what you know' - that was the saying. Yet how had Brennan come to break from it? Booth huffed a breath. He closed his eyes, letter tenting the light from behind his eyelids as he rested the unfolded napkin over his face, smiling slightly as the light played with the inky lettering behind his eyelids. Five minutes and he would move. Seriously. Five minutes.

"Can I see that?" asked his drill sergeant. Automatically Booth handed the man whatever was in his hands. It was his St. Christopher's medal. He watched as his mentor squashed it into jelly, leaving tiny fragments of Pop's tears all over young Seeley's shoes.

"Whoever you are is dead, son." Those words were true and rang with the clarity of memory within the dream.

"Yessir." The man roughly grabbed his chin and grinning malevolently, drew two thick black lines in permanent ink over Seeley's face. Booth watched his younger self helplessly from the sidelines, watched as his curly hair was shorn away as if it had truly been clipped by the very wind that was brutally ripping it out as he watched. "There," said his sergeant, satisfied at his handiwork. An ugly black cross marred his face like a stain.

"That'll be your headstone."


	9. That First Tear, The Tears Will Not Stop

Booth jerked awake, grunting, swallowing his screams. He knew he was sweating and found himself panting. He wiped his face with his hand and flicked it away, the droplets spattering the sheets next to his thigh. He glanced around blearily, completely disoriented at the swimming room. His back ached from snoozing sitting up, and Brennan's letter was stuck to his bare chest, his perspiration acting like glue as he sat up and ripped the napkin off of his skin. He didn't bother to fold it back into the envelope, but tossed both the poem and the envelope to the editor back into the drawer, slamming the Bible atop it. He realized he was pacing, sick to his stomach as he stripped off his pants and hopped into the shower. He didn't realize until he was shaving again that he had _already_ been in the shower that day. Irritated, he swiped the lather off into the spray of hot water and stepped out, realizing he had no idea what time it was. He toweled himself off, uncaring that he was buck naked as he stared at the clock. 10:15. Great. He was late. Not as bad as it could have been, but he was still late.

Huffing his irritation, he pulled his rumpled suit back on with a fresh shirt. Or at least he managed to pull on the shirt and pants without doing up either before there was a knock at his door. _Bones_, he grumbled to himself. She was coming to berate him for being half an hour late.

He was right. She was mad.

"Booth!" she barked, as soon as he yanked open the door, but his half dressed and shining skin stopped her short. He felt himself grin through his exhaustion, flattered. "What are you doing?" she finally sputtered. He turned away brusquely, leaving the door open for her, trying to scrub away that black cross he could still feel being engraved cruelly into his face.

"What does it look like Bones? I'm getting dressed."

"And are you coming to work today?"

"Of course," he retorted. "It's only 10:20."

"At _night_," she informed him tartly. He felt his face go slack with surprise and her own softened, startled. "You didn't know?" she asked quietly. He rubbed his hand over his face. He realized he had known, somehow, with his soldier's training. The disorientation upon waking had been from the dark sky outside of the curtains.

"Oh," he said helplessly, sinking back down to the mattress. He was suddenly glad he had put away her letters. He shrugged out of his dress shirt and absently folded it before tossing it on a chair. He flopped backwards and stared at the ceiling. _Oh crap_, his mind was snidely remarking; in reality, he was too tired to think clearly. "What'd I miss?" he asked dully, turning his head to find her in the room. She was busy standing next to the chair, refolding the shirt he had tousled and sloppily crumpled.

"Booth," she said in a careful voice, instead of jumping down his throat as he had expected.

"Yeah?"

"Are you...are you okay? You've been acting _very_ strange lately. Ever since we've been on this case."

"What?" Booth felt himself flooded with disbelief. For _Brennan_ to notice...

"You can be honest with me."

"Yeah...I know that."

"Are you okay?" she asked again. "Your normal moods have been..."

"I'm..." he started, almost finishing with 'okay' before he sighed, "...not sure." She nodded thoughtfully.

"I see."

"I don't," he said humorlessly. "I just fell asleep for over twelve hours."

"Booth, you haven't been sleeping well anyways."

"How do you know I don't always keep this sleep schedule?"

"I know you," she replied steadily, undaunted by his snarl. He checked himself.

They were silent a breathless moment as she slowly sank down next to him on the bed. He could feel the mattress shift under her weight. He could also feel her hips invariably sliding towards his greater weight. She slowly lay down next to him, not turning her head to look at him, but stared at the ceiling. Booth felt his heart swell. He really, really loved her sometimes. Her _not_ asking about it was more touching than any unsolicited but well meant advice.

"Are you tired?" he murmured quietly. He listened as her hair make little raspy noises while she nodded against the sheets.

"The interns were horrible." Booth felt himself seize up with silent laughter. He tried to frown.

"They aren't _horrible_," he corrected her. She sighed.

"Rationally speaking, I know that. But today was very hectic. I felt we actually _digressed_ by going over all the information rather than progressed."

"So I didn't miss anything?"

"If you had, I would have sent someone to find you earlier," she assured him. Booth had no doubt and felt slightly less guilty. They were quiet again before Brennan's voice became uncertain. "Booth, are you really scared of horses?"

"_What?_ No! Why would you..." he trailed off, shaking his head, completely flummoxed.

"You said you were having nightmares," she said in a very small voice, and Booth felt himself stiffen all over, "because you were scared of horses."

"I was just kidding," he said tightly, but he tried to make his voice joking and easy.

"So you aren't scared of horses?"

"No, Bones, of course not," he said gently. He touched her hand hesitantly with the tips of his fingers; their arms lay pressed together between them as they stared at the ceiling, as if they were gazing at the stars. She let him wrap his fingers about the tops of hers. She winced and he tensed up, shooting straight into the air, sitting up abruptly. He stared suspiciously down at her, glad for the change of subject before she could ask what the nightmare was about. "What was that?" he accused. She blinked luminously at him.

"What? Booth, what are you-" she started to sit up while she spoke, but winced mid sentence as she levered herself up.

"That," he pointed his finger at her. "What's up with you moving like a geriatric old person?"

"That sentence is redundant," she informed him. He put his hand behind her back to help her sit up all the way and she involuntarily arched against him, her face twisted in a grimace of pain. "Booth-" she griped but he was already turning her face toward him, and running his hands down her arms to make sure she was okay.

"What's wrong? Did you fall? Are you okay?"

"It's been a long day," she snapped, but her verbal bite was flagging and weak.

"Bones, take this thing off. It's all dirty anyway." He started tugging on her field work uniform and she griped again, weakly clutching at it.

"Booth, stop, I'm going to go shower - I'm going!" Booth reluctantly let his hands fall away; he couldn't just strip off his clothes, no matter how much he wanted to.

"Okay, well can we have a late dinner?" Booth asked with a crooked smile. "I'm starving!"

"You can order pizza," she told him wearily. "Just let me shower." He bounded up, smiling, and watched her mince slowly out the door, more than her ankle hurting her. He frowned as he picked up the phone.

* * *

Brennan slammed herself against the icy cold porcelain side of her shower. She hissed as the hot streams of water rippled down the front of her body. She tried not to look, but she couldn't help it; Booth had come so close to seeing. Both her shoulders were black and blue. She couldn't see it, but she was sure giant bruises marred the skin of her back, blackening her aching scapulae. One or two giant lumps were forcing themselves out of her forearms where falling rocks had struck her. Her entire back had been barraged as, at the last minute, Booth had thrown her forward, clear from the falling rock. She hadn't told anyone she had been forced through a cascade of stones. They had been pelted cruelly over her hunched back as she sprinted forward; she had kept her head down and her hands over the back of her neck to protect her fragile spine. Miraculously, her fingers had remained unscathed, but two sharp pains lanced through the lower parts of her arms as rocks the size of mangoes had hit her fleeing figure.

Shakingly, she turned off the water, feeling her aching muscles loosen the slightest bit in the steam. She wrung her hair thoroughly and toweled it into a messy mane. She wrapped her towel back around her and turned the door handle to her room to find some appropriate skin covering clothes to deceive Booth. She backed into the room, breathing the sharply cold air that contrasted from the humid steam. She clipped off a surprised screech at the ugly indrawn breath behind her. She spun around to find Booth, sitting on the bed like it was a picnic with different pizzas in front of him, staring openly at her bruises. His face was murderous.

"We need to talk."

* * *

"Booth!" she screeched a little too loudly for his comfort. He put up placating hands, turning his eyes towards the floor.

"Sorry! Sorry," he muttered. "Just...put some clothes on. No wait-" he interrupted hastily as she made toward the dresser. "Come here."

"No." She was being mulish and it only took him a few seconds to stride across the room, his legs aching in sympathy at the sight of her mutilated, bruised back.

"Let me see."

"It's fine."

"It's not."

"Then tell me why you're having nightmares." Booth stopped, his fingers inches from her skin.

"I can't." Her face flashed quickly, venemously, with hurt, but schooled itself into neutrality.

"Then I'm going to change. Get out."

"No," Booth stormed. "I'm staying put right here."

"Then you'll just have to get over your prudish tendancies and watch me change," she challenged him. His throat going dry, he still managed to be irritatingly insinuating with his long once over of her towel clad body.

"That's fine by me," he said smoothly, refolding his limbs back on the bed expectantly, as if waiting for a show. She threw him a disgusted look and slammed the bathroom door shut.

The silence was so absolute Booth could hear her enraged breathing and the soft sound of the towel hitting the bathroom floor. He felt flustered and shame ridden. He should have told her.

"Bones," he said, moving towards the door. He rested his head on it as he lifted one hand to the handle. "Bones," he repeated again quietly, "open the door." He hadn't expected her to respond and so was yanked forward when she rudely jerked the door open. She at least had on pants this time. She had forced her way into a pretty little basic black bra and matching black expensive looking sweatpants. She refused to look at him as she carefully brushed her hair over her shoulder. Her face was bare of makeup, but he was used to that. She didn't need makeup to be beautiful.

"How did this happen?" he asked quietly. She laughed a little, sardonically, and it sounded bitter and wrong in her ingenuous throat.

"You know how it happened. You threw me forward and I was showered by a rockslide."

"Does it hurt?" he asked in spite of himself, touching her bruised shoulder. By her carefully concealed flinch, it did. It hurt a lot.

"Not really," she said with blasé ease. He clenched his teeth.

"Let me put something on them."

"There's nothing you can do Booth," she seethed, brushing rudely past him.

"Nothing?" he echoed hopelessly.

"They will heal on their own." She flopped down onto the bed, pulling a shirt over her head and wincing. Booth couldn't help but watch as each of her ribs caught the light and her abdomen flexed with the motion. She stared pointedly at him.

"Should we start?" She had pulled the case files. Booth sank guiltily onto the bed, not looking at her.

"Sure."

In exactly an hour, she kicked him out.

"I'll wake you in the morning."

* * *

Booth was wary as he reached into the side dresser drawer, fishing for leverage, or rather insight. His hand came up with something unforeseen.

_ Letter to a Foe_

Booth recognized the heft of it and smiled foolishly at the stamped preprinted return address; it was from the Jeffersonian. _Who on Earth would Brennan be writing to? Epps? _His eyes snagged on the date and Booth swallowed his gum convulsively.

_ November 18th, 2006_

He knew what this was without any salutation; there wasn't one.

_It has been three days since I was kidnapped by you, the Gravedigger - subsequently escaped- and like my colleague Dr. Hodgins, I do not think I have slept for ten minutes in all of that time. _Booth felt his eyebrows furrow. She should have called him. The closest admission that she had been rattled was when the case had come to trial and she had confessed in a broken squeaky voice - a voice that sounded more like a beaten down and weathered gate than his partner - that she still had nightmares from the incident. He knew he did. He wondered why he didn't tell her that.

_What you did to me was inexcusable. It would have been better if you had had me raped; you would have left me with more dignity. Instead you raped my mind, my soul, filling me with terror, sleepless nights and crushed friendships like wilting roses. _

Booth shuddered at the imagery.

_ I never saw you do it, but I have imagined your face a thousand times. Many while I was down in that car, waiting, fearing, hoping for Hodgins to wake up from his impromptu surgery. I know what cruelty is and what hatred feels like. It feels expressively like joy, only more painful, more edgy, more...raw. It's addicting, and fierce and fills you up inside with a burning fervency that threatens to tear your metaphorical insides apart (a reality that is not possible.) Hatred makes people do strange things. But you didn't do it because you hated me. I won't even degrade you enough to say you did it out of fear. We both know better; I feel I know you better than I've known almost anyone before. It's strange - this bond between a captor, ensuring death, and the captive. I have seen so much of you, so much I wish I could forget. There should be one of those support groups my partner is continuously rattling on about -_

Booth almost smiled, but something painful was gurgling up and down his throat, stopping in different intervals and making him sweat and shiver in turn.

_ - but I don't suppose there are support groups for intended killer's victims. It gives us insights, I believe, and a preternatural clarity than defines my every waking moment. It is probably good you will not read this garbled letter. I know, scientifically, that my exhausted body is running on the dregs of adrenaline and over stimulation from lack of sleep. If I could make it another twenty four hours, perhaps I could hallucinate. Perhaps not. Please excuse my tangent, I was only offering an explanation for my behavior. _

_ You didn't kidnap me and almost bury me alive, terrified and comforting - out of my zone of homeostasis - a wounded, terrified colleague because you were afraid of me. Neither did you do it because you loathed me with a fire that rankled under your skin, rippling there like an itch that needs to be soothed. You did it out of calculations, because you understood my abilities and the potential to hurt you. You did it in order - if I survived - to degrade me, to humiliate me and to frighten me. _

_ Congratulations. You have succeeded. _

_ You won. _

Booth felt his slow, almost still heart, which seemed to be holding its breath with his lungs, suddenly jam against the bars of his ribcage in panic. What did she mean, the Gravedigger had won? Bones wouldn't say that. She was cool and collected. She had teared up slightly and comforted him in a church, smiling as sweetly as a sunrise as she whispered, "I knew you wouldn't give up," and he echoed his response. But here, here she was not that woman. A day after their time in the church and she was shaking her pen over the page, terrified and alone. Booth swallowed. They hadn't known each other like they did now, or he would have been there. A deeper, guiltier part of him informed him that he should have anyways. He bent his eyes studiously back to the page.

_ I dread walking into the lab. I loathe ducking my head to get into my car. I'm scared, almost all the time, rationally or not. Loud sounds, shadows, ticking clocks...it's all too much. It reverberates with a clarity you've afforded me, and an adrenal gland that will not shut down. Whenever I think about you, I come perilously close to tears. Your cruel voice echoing in the phone, scrambled beyond human recognition lends you a terrifying, godlike quality. A god of war and of pain. A god of suffering and sadism. You liked to watch. You wanted us to suffer. Perhaps you are watching right now, and basking in the glow of my devoting fear. _

_ I'm only glad you took me, and not Booth. _

Booth's hands clenched convulsively on the page, shaking. His eyes tore into her heart, as the gravedigger's had torn into her soul.

_I am expendable_.

Booth realized his shaking had gotten colder. He felt old.

_I am not anyone's wife, or daughter, or friend. Even Hodgins was in love, and best friends with Zack. Cam is Booth's lover -_ Booth swallowed, piqued, before realizing that when the letter had been written it was undoubtedly true. _And Booth is the heart of everyone. They have families, and friends. You chose well for an opponent. I am alone. _

_ Maybe that is why I'm still awake._

_ Because if you come for me again, I don't think anyone will be there to stop you as Hodgins did by accident. I will disappear without a trace, with a scrambled voicemail perhaps, but in most probability, my body will never be recovered, just as the bodies of my parents never were. The truth? You want the truth? I'll finally tell the truth._

_ I am __excruciatingly__ lonely._

Booth closed his eyes before he closed his heart. He couldn't leave it open to Brennan's verbal self onslaught. There was more than one way of cutting oneself. Brennan was clearly a master at delicately wrapping up her own life and beliefs in twisted shrouds of half truths and guilt.

_Your desire was to make me afraid of the world, and now I am. The confidence I had newly acquired through field work is lost. The tentative acceptance I had constructed towards my colleagues is burned, leaving the tips of my fingers charred. I am shaking beneath this blanket, hoping against hope there will be a knock at my door and that Booth will be standing there, knowing with his ridiculous heart, how much I cannot stand to look outside my window. You buried me alive, and I am still that way. You confined me in a small space, and I acclimated so quickly, I hardly recognize myself. I don't want to go outside. I don't want to leave. I am supposed to keep living my life as a means of defying you, but how can I? How can I walk away from this unscathed?_

_ If you were ever to read this letter, I know you would laugh. You would laugh and burn it; make me watch. _

_ I think I hate you, but it is so far buried within my shaking soul, I cannot be sure. But I am sure I am incredibly and massively afraid of you. I do not want to walk to my car. I do not want to eat any of my food. I can hardly breathe, for fear you've poisoned the air. One minute I'm afraid of the world, and the next, berating myself for such foolish inconsistencies. _

_ This is what you've made me do: blame myself. I was the victim, but now I feel that I am the jailer. How do I escape my own mind? You've defiled it, violated it and left it barren. It is in tatters and my equilibrium stands on the edge of a knife. I'm fearful for my sanity, and I am not exaggerating. How can I function if I let this fear paralyze me? Will I be, in a short few days, that unwashed woman cowering beneath her mattress, crouching in her own filth, sure that the air she breathes will ignite at any moment? How am I to walk upright, when I am terrified of the floor capsizing, and being buried alive?_

Booth swallowed. Jesus Bones, she was making _him_ nervous now. He looked down, making sure his floor was still where it was supposed to be, and then back up, watching the little green carbon monoxide light blink on and off slowly, drowsily, uncaring. The next two words were surprising. They were written in blue ink instead of black, as if this letter had been abandoned for an unknown period of time. Booth guessed hours rather than weeks, but he could not be sure. The words were direct.

_I understand. _

_ I understand now, what I must do. I must accept death. That I am dead in any given moment. That you may try to kill me again, but whether it be by poisoning - which I doubt I hardly merit your undivided attention - or by being hit by a car, I can no longer cower beneath the covers. I can no longer dream about your hidden face. I can no longer fantasize that this was a nightmare. And now the thick, dull mind numbing fog that has been enshrouding my mind has been burned away by something bright, and something terrible. _

_ Hate. _

_ I abhor you. I loathe you. If you have children, I will congratulate them over your grave for your demise. I will sing and laugh while I watch you suffer. I will not live like the animal that _you_ are. _

_ Get out. _

The letter was unsigned.


	10. Raining Down

"How're you holding up?" Cam shifted.

"Fine," she lied.

"You're lying," Sweets said tiredly.

"Oh come on," griped Hodgins, swatting irritatingly at Sweets. "Leave the psychologist outside the cave in."

"Fine is just something you say," Cam agreed wearily.

"Does it hurt?" asked Angela timidly.

"Well, I'm covered in blood and no one has popped my shoulder back into place," Cam snapped. "So…of course it hurts."

"I can pop your shoulder back into place at least," Hodgins offered. Cam bit her lip, weighing the options between searing pain but functional limbs, and the numb, flopping thing currently attached to her shoulder.

"Fine," she agreed cautiously, standing awkwardly and having to stoop as she shuffled towards Hodgins.

"Are you sure?" Angela asked in concern. Privately, Cam thought she should be asking her husband the question. Hodgins was very pale and covered with sweat, his breathing soft but shallow.

"Hodgins can do it," she said confidently. She dug her working fingernails into his arm as she stared at him. She didn't say anything, but he still looked away.

"Yeah," he admitted, shamefacedly. She knew he was confessing to his terror at being buried alive once more; Angela heard that he was able to fix a dislocated shoulder.

"Great!" she enthused. Cam felt her face crumple in sympathy as Hodgins resolutely stared at the ground.

"Best not to think about it," she advised. Hodgins nodded in agreement. Their conversation was skipping along subtextually. Sweets was oblivious; he was counting the number of rocks piled in front of them and doing the math for approximately how long it would take to leave.

It only took a moment of Hodgins firmly grasping her shoulder and arm, twisting fiercely, before Cam was lying on the ground, panting in pain.

"It'll be okay," Angela murmured quietly, stroking her hair. Cam coughed helplessly into the dirt, tears streaming down her face.

"Maybe you should sleep," Sweets offered unexpectedly. "You've been here longer than we have, and you look exhausted."

"Speaking of looking exhausted," Angela piped up. "Have you guys seen Booth lately?"

"Yeah, I noticed that," agreed Sweets. "What is up with him?"

"Seeley told me he's been having nightmares."

"About what?" Sweets asked, unabashedly prying.

"I don't know. I found him sleeping out in the ring at seven in the morning before I left for my run."

"Seriously?" asked Hodgins, eyebrows raised. "He just mentioned he saw you the morning you disappeared, not under what circumstances."

"He said he had gone for a walk…fell asleep outside. He was holding a letter. I didn't ask but I think it must have been pretty important if he felt he couldn't read it in his room. It looked old."

"Possibly from his parents?" Sweets offered. Angela was staring at Cam.

"Cam, are you okay?" Cam nodded wearily. In reality, she was parched. No water for almost two days was slowly killing her. She felt weak and shaky. The air was too hot, and left a coating of dust on her tongue. She knew she was dehydrated; she had had the same headache for over 24 hours.

"Maybe you should lie down," Hodgins agreed, catching on. Hell, anything was better than his own fluttering panic that would not _shut up_.

"Oh my God," Sweets said, as if seeing Cam for the first time. He scooted over, not having the energy to stand up. He put a hand to her skin; it made Cam flinched and she saw his clinical eyes assessing that as well. Fantastic.

"What's up Sweets?" Hodgins asked, also putting a hand to Cam's face.

"Will people stop touching me!" she snapped, embarrassed.

"She's clammy," Sweets pronounced.

"I feel it," agreed Hodgins.

"She's severely dehydrated. Look at the grey area around her mouth. Her sunken eyes."

"She's also lost blood down her front," Hodgins agreed. "It could be getting infected."

"Not to mention all the electrolytes she can't make up for," Angela unexpectedly put in.

"We need to get her help and fast," Sweets said in a low voice. _I can hear you_, Cam wanted to snap, but she just let her muscles liquefy in the dirt. They were right. She was tired.

"Hey!" Hodgins yelled through the barrier. "HEY!" There was an instant quiet from the ceaseless ringing of shovels and jackhammers.

"Is something wrong?" asked a technician.

"We've got a really sick woman in here!" Hodgins replied. "She needs water! And medical attention!"

"No," Cam protested, her voice weak, "I'm fine…really." Angela laughed a little harsh laugh.

"You're _not_ fine. Stop saying that and let us help you." She gently touched the rags covering Cam's stomach. "Can I see?"

_No_, she wanted to whimper. Instead she nodded slowly, her eyes focused on the ceiling to avoid shedding humiliated tears.

The first bandages came off easily; the second were coated in blood. By the third layer, Cam was biting off little sounds and instead drowning them in muttered curse words that had Hodgins alternatively laughing and squeezing her hand understandingly. He _could _understand. He had been operated on in the car with Brennan without anesthetic. Cam gritted her teeth. A skinned stomach, fractured collarbone and a dislocated shoulder were nothing compared to the horror he had gone through.

Cam finally let a few tears leak out when Angela carefully ripped skin away from her body, taking the scabs that had formed under the rags with it and letting her lacerated abdomen bleed anew.

"Holy crap," Sweets muttered. "How did you _do_ that?"

"Talent," Cam said sagely, trying to buck up with a parody of a smile. To her credit, Sweets returned the miserable little smile.

"How much longer?" bellowed Hodgins.

"Only another hour!" called a familiar voice. It was Wendell.

"Dude!" Hodgins yelled back. "What are you doing here?"

"You think I'm just going to sit around in my hotel room while my friends are stuck in a landslide? No way! I came as soon as I could."

"Me too," chimed Fisher.

"Like totally me three," chirruped Daisy. "Lance! Are you okay?" Sweets blushed heavily in the semi-darkness.

"I'm okay, but Dr. Saroyan is hurt!"

"How bad?" called Wendell back, panic lacing his voice.

"Pretty badly," Angela contributed.

"I'm fine," Cam shouted; it took all her strength and left her weak, the world spinning.

"Right," Wendell called back. "Because you're never anything else!" His scathing but friendly tone made Cam blush as well.

"She's hurt," Hodgins reiterated.

"Hurry," Angela pleaded.

"We're working as fast as it is safe to do so," came a new voice. It was Brennan. "Are you all right Angela?"

"I'm okay!" she called back. "Cam is hurt."

"We'll get you out of there," promised a rough voice.

"You better Seeley," Cam whispered, but her voice was so soft only Angela heard.

"Is there anything I can get you?" she begged Cam.

"A strawberry milkshake," Cam teased, her eyes still flashing despite the fever glaze stealing through them. She shivered and Angela pulled her into her arms to wait.

"You got it," she vowed grimly.

"I'll be fine," Cam said again, as unconvincing as ever. "You are all over reacting. I'm just tired –"

"And bleeding, and scared, and dehydrated," Sweets added with a serious note to his voice. "Be honest with yourself. You're not fine."

"Has anyone told you that you are really annoying when you use shrink talk?" Hodgins groused over his shoulder, his other ear pressed to the rock to find the weakest point of entry. Sweets nodded.

"Many, many times."

* * *

Booth banged the back of the ambulance twice with one hand and it rumbled off slowly. Cam, iv inserted and morphine already flowing, had mumblingly refused to acknowledge she needed medical attention. The other ambulance had its back doors wide open. Hodgins and Sweets were sitting side by side, legs swinging as they talked to the paramedics and drank large glasses of water. Angela stood a little apart, fervently brushing her hair of the stone dust that was turning the glossy black to charcoal grey. Booth wanted to laugh, but refrained.

Brennan arched her back and winced, and Booth remembered her mutilated body. His mood darkened past his already cloudy worry that was hovering around him. Relief had inundated him upon finding all his friends alive and well; Angela had marched past him, furious with his actions. Hodgins had come out supporting Cam under one arm who was ashen grey and limping. Without thinking, Booth had scooped her up and she had cried out, her tattered stomach contracting against rough contact. The EMT's had scolded him and rushed her away on a stretcher against her vain attempts to sit back up.

He realized he was staring at Brennan again. She caught his eye and her shoulders slumped. She dismissed the crowd of her interns hovering about her as a job well done. Exhausted but proud, they caught a van back to the hotel. Booth wordlessly opened the door to his suv. She limped over and he helped her into the front seat.

The car ride was silent; Booth could feel the waves of hostility rolling off of her as she turned her face towards the window. When he pulled into the parking lot at the hotel, she jerked and he realized she had fallen asleep. She sourly refused his unspoken gesture when he opened her door for her.

She stomped upstairs, dirty, tired and upset. Booth could tell she was still half asleep by the way she wove back and forth as she walked, and pushed the wrong floor in the elevator. He corrected her by leaning across and indenting the right one. She scowled as if he had mortally offended her. He knew she hated to be corrected.

She actually walked _into _her door, griping non-words in frustration as she jammed the key card into the slot over and over. He gently wrested it from her fingers and led her to his door, where he opened it.

"Magnetic strip must be broken. I'll go down and have it looked at while you shower." She was so tired she didn't even argue. Booth swallowed. That was unlike her; their bickering was legendary.

He waited patiently at the front desk before returning to his room. It was stuffy and hot; the bathroom was full of steam and the door was wide open. He fearfully peaked inside in case she had slipped but smiled helplessly when he saw her sprawled dead asleep across his bed, obviously meaning to rest her eyes briefly. He swallowed though, when he realized she was wearing nothing but the towel wrapped loosely around her body.

He skirted the bed, wondering what to do. His hand opened the letter drawer before he could think, and he loosened his tie as he dropped into the armchair across the small room. Miles of creamy calves were at his eye level. Booth forced himself to look away lest the towel didn't cover everything. Like a true gentleman, he instead opened the envelope slowly, watching her, his sniper senses blaring for the least sign of movement when he would stuff the letter into his pants pocket. She didn't even snore.

_May 27__th__, 2006_

Exactly one week after they had solved her mother's case. Booth brooded, caressing the page under his thumb, as he would have liked to do to her bruised back. This was just after she and Russ had reunited at the fair park.

_Letter to a Brother_

_Dear Russ, _

Booth swallowed, and mimed buckling his seatbelt in his head. This one was going to be rough; he could tell. Brennan never said much about Russ, but his inner Geiger counter clicked like mad whenever he was around her.

_It's funny that I never thought to write you a letter when you walked out, but now only that you've walked back in. Booth is playing a very stupid game, meddling in my life._

Booth pouted. Brennan's off-putting bluntness sometimes wounded more than he was aware.

_I don't mean to be clichéd, but you never knew what you meant to me. I was an intelligent child. I let Mom and Dad believe I didn't know Santa Claus didn't exist until I was 9 or 10; I snuck downstairs when I was six and saw them assembling my new dollhouse. I especially enjoyed that instead of dolls, Dad filled it with miniature anatomy models filled with spleens, primitive interactive robots, and my all time favorite – a test tube full of acid that was melting a penny. _

_I suppose other people would find our family strange. _Booth was laughing softly to himself._ I still loved it_. He stopped.

_Russ, I idolized you. I worshipped you more than children worship Santa Claus, and more than some Christians worship their god, in a sanctimonious temple full of hypocritical liars. _Booth felt his mouth twist. He also couldn't refute the statement. Some churches were like that. _You were smart and cool. You were athletic and brave. You didn't cry in the thunderstorms like I did. You never were beat up as I was. You were popular and good-looking. I was ungainly, too tall for middle school, sallow skinned and sullen. You were my claim to fame. Some people boasted about their great-great-great-great uncle being Mark Twain. Some boasted about how their grandmother went to the same high school as Elvis Presley. Some boasted even about how their parents saw a celebrity on vacation. Not me. I was not important. Mom and Dad…their true lives unbeknownst to either of us…were ordinary, but good people. My claim to fame was you. _

_ Only you. _

_ I may have outshone you in academics, to your displeasure, but my God Russell how I walked so humbly in deep trodden footsteps. Can't you see that? Everywhere I turned, in every art I applied my hand, you had already been there, and excelled. You were intelligent, athletic, popular, charming, artistic, musical and genuinely a good man. No one could imagine that out of Mom, who was so stunningly beautiful and caring, and out of Dad who was funny and charming, flirtatious and cunning, came me. I was shy. I was a plain dresser. I did not wear makeup. I did not care for the same trends the eighties and nineties flaunted. I was helpless at pop culture. You were their _real_ child, regardless of what you think today. The reality is that I still am all those things. I am socially awkward. I am shy. I am reticent to talk to people. I have nothing in common with anyone else. I do not wear makeup. I wear plain clothing. I cannot understand cultural fashions. I am a robin that came out of cardinals, accepted as a part of the family simply because a little bit of me shines red. _

_ You were what I wanted so desperately to become. _

_ You left. _

The stark transition made Booth swallow harshly. He clenched his jaw, feeling his eyebrows already furrow around the tiny tension headache forming from keeping his facial muscles tight. Brennan was exceptional, extraordinary. He had never known she felt so…drab. How could she not see how she shone, how she scintillated in the spotlight. Booth realized now that her self-righteous bragging, her listing of her accomplishments was not to annoy him as he had once thought, (and she had let him). They were to reassure _herself_ she was worth something. Brennan, the most confident and beautiful woman he knew – and that included Angela and Cam – was in fact still the wallflower. She had only changed the wallpaper.

_I'm not going to make a parody of this by relating the tragedy our lives have become. I correct myself, the tragic circumstances our lives have sustained. I truly hope we aren't living a tragedy, as I still – foolishly, I sometimes think – hope for a better ending._

It's not foolish, Booth wanted to tell her. Hope was not for the weak; it took energy, and drained one's faith to believe so hard in something it reigned as a possibility. Booth still believed he was going to get married, despite the overwhelming and upsetting evidence to the contrary.

_But in reality, I cannot deny the last few acts of my life have been played mainly in a minor key, the notes discordant and unyielding. I wanted for so long to tell you that you were my hero; I think I would have, on that 20__th__ birthday of yours that was coming up. I was gathering the courage, you see. But you left before I had a chance. You left and took such a huge portion of me with you that for months I was unable to sustain any semblance of a 'normal' girl. Even a normal Temperance. Tempe. _

_ It's still strange to call myself that sometimes. My lips almost can't form the shapes, my pen almost can't trace the letters together, as ridiculous as that sounds. Booth – if he were reading this – would say it's not ridiculous. To trust my heart to speak. He obviously knows little of anatomy or else he would understand the heart is a muscle, not a neurological center. _

Booth found himself grinning foolishly. This Brennan was just slightly discordant with the one he had seen tattered and torn, covered in bruises sprawled right before him. The letter Brennan was just the tiniest bit harsher. The littlest bit more bitingly sardonic. A tad less humorous.

_I know you are wondering – actually you aren't since you will never read this unless I have somehow ceased breathing and these were found amongst my possessions – a fate more humiliating than I can claim, I assure you, given these potential and rambling flights of fancy – _Booth swallowed again. _You are wondering whether Booth and I are together. Sexually._

_ That is a lie, most likely circulated by Angela. _

_ It's not that I do not find Booth attractive_ – Booth preened. _Although the concept of loving another woman does not perturb me in the slightest as sexuality is a socialized norm, not a biological one – _Booth couldn't swallow this time. _The feelings I have for Booth are…complicated. Complex. _

_ I feel a great deal about him that I used to feel about you. _

Booth's heart tanked through his feet, splattering messily over his FBI standard issue black shoes. She loved him…like a brother. The qualifier rent him more viscerally than the little tear in the top corner of the letter.

_I admire him. _

_ I admired you Russ; you were my hero. Yes, as silly as it may sound, you were the person who always seemed to save the day. When I was younger and more fluid within age strata and acceptable idolatry, I found that I revered Dad the same way I care for you. He was who I wanted to be, more than anything. Growing into a teenager, I felt I had to distance myself from him; it isn't usual, I found, for daughters to confess their every thought to their fathers like a confidante the way I did. _

Booth was unsurprised. Max and Brennan were very similar. He had never met her mother, but Max had often described her as warm. More fluid. More zesty and tangible. Booth could still see glimpses of her in Brennan, when Bones let down her guard for a bit, dancing at prom, horse back riding, or teasing him about sex. He could see where her mother shone through the divot holes of her careful armor.

_When our parents disappeared – _Booth noticed she didn't quite say 'left' as if a desperate part of her_,_ even in the face of identifying her mother's remains, she had hoped (as this was before Max's explanation) they had simply vanished, and not chosen to leave of their own accord -_ I believed it was my fault. Of course, like any overly emotional teenager, I shouldered the blame for an unlikely occurrence. Yet I still have lingering doubts; perhaps I should have flaunted societal standards and stayed closer to Dad. Maybe then they wouldn't have left. Mom wouldn't be dead. Their semi-outrageous lives as bank robbers would have consisted of us in a Naval upbringing – moving around under a pretense. It would have kept us together, at the very least. And Mom alive. _

Booth wanted to carefully lay her down and knead out the tension and worry he had so clearly seen at this time, as her parents' true identities came into light piece by piece. But they hadn't been so close. They hadn't even been close. They had barely tolerated one another.

_I had a hero once. Maybe twice. But heroes leave. They don't say that in the comics, in the little popular culture I have gleaned. Heroes are supposed to be Superman – Clark Karl – _Booth wanted to groan at her frustrating inaccuracies, and smile at the same time – _and always be able to hear you cry. But both you and Dad left, Russ. The idea of a hero died._

_ It's been a very long time since I've trusted anyone like Booth. I probably haven't trusted anyone like this since I was with you. Booth is like a brother to me_.

Booth, who had been eagerly reading about himself in his usual narcissistic manner of fluffing his loosely coiffed tie, yanked hard upon it at the last line, feeling as a dog reaching the end of its cruel chain.

_Brother_, he scoffed.

_But I'm afraid to trust Booth the way I did with you and Dad. I've been careful since you two; although I've had close friends…they all leave in the end. In fact, I'm waiting for my friendship with Angela to expire soon. Nothing ties her to the lab but me and I know I am simply not enough._

Booth stopped reading to actually pray a word of thanks to his god. _Hodgins happened just at the right time_, he mused with a silly little grin to himself. Brennan, though self-proclaimed as unperceptive, had been right. Booth had noted Angela's restlessness as well when he teased her about the "magic voodoo crystal ball thingy" that was the Angelator.

_Booth however, has somehow rudely, coarsely and with much prudish blushing_ – Booth scowled at her interpretation_ – has pushed his way into my life. He has, as you and Mom used to joke about Dad's extended visits to the lavatory after Thanksgiving dinner, 'homesteaded' himself in my life. He's everywhere. He's at the Chinese Restaurant. He's at the diner. He's at work. Sometimes he's even at home when he calls me, asking if I need any groceries. Who does he think he is, my husband? He then cheekily remarks I am his partner. That man is insufferable. _

_ And he is quickly becoming my best friend._

_ But if I'm honest with myself…he's more than just a brother and more than just a best friend. __He's becoming, to my disbelief, my hero. _But I don't want to talk about Booth. I just want you to know that while I thought you had ripped trust right out of my chest after Mom and Dad had sliced it open, somehow this ridiculously handsome and egotistical man has found another supply. It's not much, and I hope it's enough. 

_ I know you called every year on my birthday. I also know that you threw your life away for petty theft. For God's sake Russ, you had so much potential. Much more than I ever did, in so many ways. And you squandered it for what? A sense of community? I was angry for so long, I couldn't bear the thought of talking to you. You hurt me more than any abusive foster home. _

_Yes, I was abused. _

_ I just wanted you to know that. _

_I hope that you can't sleep at night, not out of vindictive pleasure for your suffering, but because I find that for so many years, I couldn't. It's not vengeance, nor revenge. It's understanding. I want you to miss me. I want you to want to be with me. I want to be _enough_ for you. __And I know that I'm not._

_ But like I mentioned previously, I can only keep hoping this play isn't a tragedy._

_ Affectionately (and angrily), _

_ Your sister,_

_ Temperance_

Booth looked back at Brennan on the bed, helpless and at a loss. He stood and changed for bed, showering and humming loudly in the hopes she would wake herself up. When he got out of the shower, he realized he had no such luck. He dressed quietly and his fingers paused on another of his soft white v-necks. Hesitantly he approached the bed, the shirt still clutched in his fingers.

"Brennan," he said quietly. "Bones." He sank down beside her and gently shook her still moist arm. She groaned and shifted restlessly, but did not wake.

"Come on," he said again, shaking her a little harder. He had an idea and snaked his arm roughly under her bruised shoulders. "Up you go," he whispered to her, as if she were a drowsing Parker.

"Booth?" she mumbled sleepily. The towel had creased as a perfect plunging neckline between her breasts. Booth tried not to stare. She was covered…barely. He roughly wrested the neck of the shirt over her dripping hair.

"Come on Bones, put this on," he told her. He expected her to wake any moment and slap him. Instead, she grumblingly stuck out an arm like a child as he patiently guided the sleeve over it. She repeated the process with the other arm. He pulled the shirt down. It covered the tops of her thighs. Barely.

He yanked roughly at the towel she was sitting on and it came away easily as she flopped back. Every inch of her legs were exposed, the fabric hardly covering her at all. He hastily pulled the shirt down as far as it could go. Perhaps half an inch disappeared. Swallowing and grimacing, he threw the towel on the floor and slid the sheets out from under her thighs. His other arm was busy supporting her lolling upper half.

"Under the covers Bones," he said into her ear. She murmured sleepily, her hands grasping at the covers as she pulled them over herself and nestled into his pillow. Booth knew that if she ever woke and discovered he had crawled into the same bed with her when she wasn't even wearing underwear….well more children would be out of the question. But he might have a lovely singing voice.

Sighing and shoving the letter back into the drawer, he stared hopelessly at it for a moment. If he left the letters, she could potentially find them. If he took them with, he might forget them in the morning. Booth hovered between the two options before he yanked open his suitcase and stuffed some boxers into the drawer, covering both the letters and the Bible. She might think he was strange for using the nightstand as an underwear drawer but it was better than the furious alternative.

He grabbed her key card and slowly retreated, turning lights off as he went, hoping against hope she'd wake and leave. Instead she burrowed deeper into the bed, murmuring something that sounded like his name. He swiped into her room and took the twin she didn't sleep in.

Dressing her had been a simple, artless love. But as he stared into the darkness, aching beneath the sheets, Booth knew he was so much more than a brother.


	11. She Won't Make A Sound

**So sorry for the delay! It will get better. I had troulbe finding a pesky little letter swimming about in Brennan's brain. **

* * *

"I'm late!" Booth slitted his eyes into the dark. There was a shadowy form moving in his room. He froze, not willing to draw attention to himself with the long ease and tireless practice of a soldier. There was a rustling and a stomping and a muttered curse as someone…tripped? There was a slap of hand to glass as if the world's most clumsy robber had caught himself against the desk. Booth hardly dared to breathe, his brain still fogged with sleep. There was a yank, a hissing noise and Booth's own whimper of pain as piercing sunlight lanced into his retinae.

Yet he couldn't close his eyes.

Brennan stood silhouetted in the light in front of the blinding white of the gauzy curtain, his once dark room now flooded with sunlight. His own thin white neck that he had dressed her in last night was absolutely transparent, and as she stood craning, standing on tiptoe, Booth realized he could see the bottom most curve of both her buttocks. She lashed about, glaring out of tousled titan brown hair and clear blue eyes. Booth had never been more painfully aware that it was morning in his _life_.

"Did you do this?" she seethed, stamping over to the neat suitcase in one corner and bending clean over; Booth was very lucky her head was facing him, or else he might have had a coronary failure. He could still see the clean lines of her legs triangled over the open maw that was erupting clothes as she furiously dug through them, throwing ones she would wear on the spare twin bed Booth wasn't using.

"You wouldn't wake up," he mumbled. At least he hoped he mumbled it. It may not have been English.

"Did you _undress_ me?" she seethed, snapping up, and Booth could see she was trembling with outrage. He sat up, irked at the barb to his dignity.

"_NO! _Of course not Bones! I would _never_…you think I'm what? Just a pervert that goes around and looks under my partner's clothes while she's unconscious? Is that what you think?" He hadn't realized he was shouting until the only thing in the room was his breath coming in hot pants, and hers echoing across the hot room. Booth, upon hearing the conjoined sound, had to grip handfuls of the sheets to literally anchor himself to the bed and to stop himself from going over and kissing her senseless, slowly inching that white tee up as pieces of skin were revealed teasingly, a bit at a time.

His lust and his anger had quieted her. She stood, straddling the suitcase, trembling at the look in his eyes, he was sure, but she breathed heavily, sighing and lifted a hand to her hair. Booth couldn't help but notice the tshirt was stretched at its _very_ limits of covering her decently with that single action; she wasn't a doll. She was tall and the sun streaming through the thin fabric left little of her curves to the imagination.

"No," she said more quietly, after her gusty sigh. "No, I suppose when you put it that way…"

"You fell asleep on my bed," he assured her, just as quietly and pushing his arm down over his lap a little more forcefully than usual as if that could cover his problem; he wasn't sure if her quick eyes had caught it yet. He could feel his face burn at the thought. He swallowed. "…In your towel."

Her eyes narrowed. "Why didn't you wake me?"

"I _tried_," he exploded, gesticulating wildly, to give vent to _any_ of this pent up frustration he was feeling. "But you were so sleepy you just mumbled to me and sort of flopped around." He could see her eyes narrow again, but he could tell this time it was out of amusement. Her lips tightened.

"Flopped around?" she asked delicately. Booth cracked a wry grin and her tight lips tugged into his favorite Bones smile.

"I just pulled the shirt on over the towel and put you to bed. I _swear_," he added fervently. "And I thought you wouldn't want me to…you know…crawl in. Just in case you woke up with the shirt bunched up around your-" Booth found his tongue had swollen so much he couldn't finish the sentence, to his chagrin.

Brennan heaved a sigh.

"You were correct," she admitted candidly and still watched him with narrow eyes. She tilted her head towards the door. "But now I'm very late, and I want to get dressed."

Panic inundated Booth.

"Oh, come on Bones," he teased, his mind working at hyper speed trying to avoid _any_ possible way in which he had to stand up in his sweatpants. "You're the boss. You're never late, everyone else is just early. And it's not like Cam is there to give you grief about it."

"I gave them all the day off," she said musingly, going back to rifling through her suitcase and give Booth just the fraction of a second he needed to spring up and run for the door.

"Good for you Bones," he managed to squeak out as he yanked the door open. He sucked up a sigh of relief but let it out like a spluttering balloon when he came face to face with Angela, whose hand was raised as if to knock on the door. She took in his tousled little boy look, sleep still clinging to his face, his widely dilated pupils and his raging erection and her slow sultry smile brightened to the intensity of the sun.

Booth wanted to die.

He squeaked past her and snapped his own keycard into his door. It took three fumbling tries while he could hear Angela greet Brennan with her clicks of disapproval and her clucks of approving overtly sexualized phrases. Booth didn't think his ears could flame even the littlest bit more and finally slammed the door behind him, right as a full throated roar of laughter issued from the room across the hall.

* * *

"What on _earth_ are you wearing, sweetie?" Angela asked, taking in the rakish, disheveled look Brennan was sporting.

"Booth's t-shirt," she answered absently, still trying to wrestle into her underwear, a fact not lost on Angela.

"I see. And where did you sleep last night?" she asked, seeing the one rumpled covers of the twin.

"In Booth's room," she answered shortly, looking around for jeans before snatching them from underneath a chair where she had flung them in her impetuous rage.

"I see," Angela hummed, her voice thick with gloating and pleasure. "In that?"

"Yes," said Brennan, seeming bewildered at Angela's constant inquiries. Her brain then caught up with Angela's side of the conversation while she balanced on one leg, the other encased in denim. She toppled and fell onto the bed, huffing at the sky as she shoved her other leg in the vicinity of the pant hole over and over.

"Not like that."

"What was it like then?" Angela smiled wickedly, raising her eyebrows and tickled half to death with the situation.

"He slept in here, and I slept in there." Angela's sunny smile, tinged with desirous guilt, immediately dropped off her face with a thunderclap.

"Why?"

"I fell asleep in here after my shower because my key card wouldn't work. So Booth just tucked me in and left me alone." Brennan finally managed to force her recalcitrant and swollen ankle into the leg hole. She winced both in pain and Angela's coo at the situation.

"That is _so_ sweet, it could make me sick."

"What?" Brennan scrunched up her face.

"You two," Angela sighed again. Brennan pulled off her shirt with her back to Angela and Angela stopped to admire her friend's long torso as she clasped her bra. Brennan wrestled back into another shirt and tossed the v-neck at Angela.

"Ange, could you take this over to him? Thanks," and without waiting for an answer, she barricaded herself in the bathroom, leaving Angela standing, a smug smile flitting about her lips at the obvious tension between the two partners.

* * *

"No!" gasped Cam in the right proportions of outrage and indecent delight. Angela was sitting in the chair next to her hospital bed, retelling the morning's account with fiendish flair. Cam continued to suck contentedly on her strawberry milkshake, just as Angela had promised.

"Yes," laughed Angela.

"Where are they now?" asked Cam, wincing as she struggled to lean forward against the shredded skin of her stomach. Angela deftly snagged the cup of ice chips Cam had been mutely reaching for. Typical Cam, unable to voice a simple request when she could bark orders on the Forensic Platform with a skill to rival even Brennan.

Angela, who had already taken the liberty to scoop herself a little handful of ice chips and was thoughtfully munching on them as if they were a snow cone, paused.

"I don't know." She rolled her eyes. "But knowing Brennan, probably at work."

* * *

Booth yanked his hands out of his pockets as Fisher past for the third time, remarking under his breath at a condescending posture. He wasn't actually doing anything, waiting as he was to drive Brennan to an interview. She had finally and disgustedly taken the damp towel from Wendell as he assured his boss and mentor for the third time that the interns had it under control. Hodgins was playing up his position by reclining in the trailer on site in the only air conditioning, summoning interns to fetch things for him and to bring all samples to him. Sweets strolled by, easting his head's weight in ice cream. Booth could practically hear the envious moans of the tech teams ankle deep in dirt, carefully sifting for the very last few bones as they were painstakingly uncovered.

"Got it!" squealed Daisy, holding something high over her head and waving it energetically as if she had won at capture-the-flag.

"The missing menubrium!" Fisher sighed in relief and Booth smacked his hands together.

"Ok then Bones, let's vamoose!"

"I'm _coming_," she snapped and stomped over. Booth saw her ankle roll out at an unpleasant an almost unearthly looking angle and she winced. He was already there beside her, holding her arm over his shoulder.

"Bones, you didn't _wrap_ it?" he griped, exasperated with her stubbornness. "Ignoring it won't make it go away."

"I just didn't have time," she retorted, gently easing herself down on the same long she had sat on when she had first twisted it.

"You need to brace it," he chastised her.

"It's fine."

"It's fine," he echoed in a deceptively mild tone. He patted her shoulder cheekily and stood, shoving his hands back deeply into his pockets. "Are you fine?" he asked conversationally, irked with her denial.

"I'm fine."

"You're always fine."

"Don't snap at me Booth," she bristled against his tone. Booth shrugged nonchalantly, forgetting his stance and defensively folding his arms across his chest.

"Why? Because it never matters, you're _always_ fine."

"I'm not fine!" She snapped back and stopped, horrified.

Booth was quiet.

"But neither are you," she plowed on stubbornly. Booth's eyebrows snapped to cross like his arms.

"Don't put this on me."

"You look terrible!" she screeched.

"Gee thanks," he said sourly, roughly grabbing up her elbow and helping her to her feet.

She struggled out of his grip and limped proudly over to his car and heaved herself in, blasting the air conditioning.

"I'm serious Booth," she said, in a completely different tone, glancing at him sidelong from the corner of her azure eyes.

"And so am I Bones," he sighed, exhausted. He wryly smiled at her. "Want to find a diner?"

Her smile curved like a cat's, knowing perfectly well he was mutely refusing to address the situation.

"Sure."

* * *

"Sir, if you could just wait out here. I'm sure the young woman will be out shortly." The nurse smiled at him, gesturing to a line of uncomfortable looking hospital waiting chairs. Booth sank into one. Angela was still holed up with Cam, and Booth smiled to himself, able to hear their laughter resonating down the hallway. He had been so worried. He was there to bring Cam back to the hotel after her 24 hour hydration stint in the hospital, pumped full of antibiotics.

He knew he was being naughty, but now the secret slip of paper against his soft t-shirt under his leather jacket seductively swished as he walked. The crinkling noise as he took it out underneath his hands excited him. Here was his chance to walk into a perfectly rendered memory, caught forever in Brennan's mind; one he held between his fingers.

He fluffed out the letter.

_January 6th, 2006_

_Dear Angela,_

Booth smiled smugly to himself. He had been waiting to see this one.

_ This is rather a silly, sentimental letter. Usually I write these letters in times of great anguish. Yet I do not experience such forces of emotions the way I used to. However, lying on the floor of my office with you, locked into the lab over Christmas break, has made me unbearably uncomfortable, so much so that my skin feels tight as I walk around. _

_ This of course, is a metaphorical tightness; I am neither overheated nor ill. I am not experiencing any trauma or symptoms of illness_. Booth paused, his face creasing in rumpled sympathy for her naïve way of looking at trauma. He would have thought that her colleagues observing her difficulty with Christmastime, including himself, was very traumatic. Now that Booth had known what she had gone through, in more eloquent terms than she could have spoken, he felt doubly for her.

_We are nothing alike you and I._ Booth almost smiled at the typical Brennan bluntness. _You are creative, intuitive, warm. I am logical, precise and cold. You see the world as a children's playground. I haven't been a child in a very long time._

Booth felt his spine tingle with dread.

_I am often confused by your overt flirtatiousness and warmth towards me. I do not understand, seeing as I contribute very little to this relationship. Yet you – at least seem – to adore me. You are such a bright, lovely person. I do not understand how you've come to work in this lab of death and decay. I know you tend to be rather frivolous with money, and seek steady employment, but I can guarantee that this lab has changed for the better because of you. _

_ You light up the room. It's easy to hear your laughter. You're intelligent, innovative and genuine. _

_ But I have decided I don't want you here. It is frustrating not only to have to consider how to talk to you – something I never worry about with Hodgins or Zack – but you encroach too much on my personal life. _

Booth wasn't surprised by the abrupt turn of the letter. It was so typical of Bones. As soon as anyone got too close, she tried to push away – hard. She was very, very lucky that so much of her lab family was incredibly stubborn. For Angela, he could understand Brennan's reticence. Angela had swept into her life and then been locked in with Brennan during the hardest part of her year – the part where she found herself staring at ties. Instead of being able to flee from her memories, she was stuck in an endless little hell where Angela insisted on going through all the traditions that wounded Brennan deeply. And instead of once opening her mouth, she hid, ensconced herself away from her friends. She didn't want to admit to her heart being ripped from her chest with the Christmas tree glaring from a corner, the presents her parents never opened and the familiarity of colleagues when she was always, always the stranger.

_You do not belong here. I feel that it should be obvious by now. Not only are women an anathema in my lab, but the women that do thrive here are not like you. They do not look in the mirror. They do not even look around. _

_ Angela, what do you want from me?_

Booth felt his breath catch. This was the crux of the question. He quickly scanned the letter, looking for more and realized the rest of the page was blank. Frustrated beyond belief, he flipped it over to the back and found one more neat sentence in the middle of the blank page.

_I hate myself that I don't know_.

Booth felt his heart ache; it became painful to draw that long hissing breath of sympathy. Brennan had been hurting; she had been scared, and she had no one to ask why this woman was meddling in her life. Booth swallowed. Brennan hadn't known what friendship was, even when it stared her in the face. He couldn't imagine growing up that way, with so few friends that she didn't recognize genuine sympathy when she saw it. She was angry, and frustrated and she couldn't understand because she couldn't understand her own worth. She saw Angela as simply clinging to her with no benefit for herself, because poor Brennan hadn't seen anything in herself. She hadn't been _able_ to give.

Booth swelled with pride to realize how far she had come in so short a time.

"Booth?" the door had creaked open without him noticing. He forced his hand not to shake as he calmly folded the letter back up – instead of squashing it into a rough ball as his brain was panicking – and slid it into his inner jacket pocket as if he had just been reading a docket.

"Bones," he mustered up a smile that felt like a terrible grimace, reminiscent of Batman's Joker, to greet her. He let it drop off immediately, not wanting to trigger her admittedly rather unpredictable insight into his mindset.

"Have you seen Cam?"

"No, I'm still waiting. How'd you get here?"

"I had a tech team drive me."

"You came for Cam?" She smiled coyly.

"And for you," she laughed, and saw his face light up in an answering smile. "I thought maybe you'd let me drive."

"Definitely not," he reprimanded her.

"Is it because of my ankle?" She primly extended her leg, which he noticed was clean, and her foot bandaged and bulky.

"Definitely not," he echoed. She laughed, her hair catching the light. Booth watched her, entranced, his world moving in slow motion. How far she had come, indeed.

They walked down the hall together, bickering their usual banter. Cam looked up hopefully and smiled at seeing two of her closest friends gliding through the door. Booth wanted to laugh; she was holding a mirror.


	12. Alone In This Fight With Herself

**Guys, you gotta blame the squints on this one. They kept interrupting! This is the first chapter since the beginning in which the letter is not completed. I'll probably finish it up next chapter. Maybe another one too? Is two letters too many for one go? You review. I felt that we were losing focus on adorableness in the midst of the diary entries and serious facades. **

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* * *

**

_Letter to a Liar_

What on…Booth flipped over the envelope, curious, searching for clues on the outside before discovering what Brennan meant with her harsh address. Like some of the previous letters, his only clue was the Jeffersonian stationary. He carefully tugged his finger along the seal, his heart ripping a little with the paper as he realized that he hardly felt that fluttering of guilt he usually got when opening and reading her diary. Instead, he now felt that he and this letter-writing-Brennan had a pact; a secret pact, in which Brennan was tacitly letting him glance into her life and understand her, although her pride would never allow her to admit it.

Booth knew rationally that he was being idiotic but at the same time he also couldn't help feeling that this unspeakable connection lingered between them. Not between real Brennan and himself, but rather this doppleganger, this twin of herself, a reflection in a mirrored world…sometimes reading comics had its perks.

_November 12__th__, 2008_

_Jared,_

Her abrupt lack of salutation was a bit unnerving to Booth, as was the idea of Brennan writing his brother a letter. What could have possibly happened?

His stomach plummeted.

Of course. And she would have never said a word. He desperately wished Cam knew (and was okay) with his letter reading predicament. Although Booth had been dragged through a range of emotions, from fear to guilt, from apathy, depression, hopelessness, anger, and misery to protectiveness, affection, startled laughter, helpless smiles, and love, he had never once hesitated to read a letter. This letter, though, he wished he could let Cam skim for him, screening him from the worst if it should come to that.

_You could always put it down_, his mind whispered. But Booth was nothing if not honest with himself. He knew he couldn't – wouldn't – put it down.

He gulped down his gag reflex and steeled himself, holding the letter as far as possible from his face in preparation to let his fingers release it as soon as he hinted a _whiff_ of the impossible. Improbable actually; Bones had taught him very rarely is something impossible. Her cool rational didn't make him feel any less queasy.

He huffed a breath and let his eyes gingerly glue themselves to the first sentence.

_This is completely irrational and written in anger._ Booth smiled smugly. Well, even if it had happened, he was happy to know it had ended badly.

_And I still reek of the beer you slopped all over me when I shoved you off your stool in that bar._ Booth glowed some more. That was his girl. His partner. His Bones. _Atta girl_, he gloated, now holding the letter in the tips of both hands, though still far away.

_But I cannot believe the lies, the falsehoods, the deceit and the cruelty, which you led me to believe the fabrications you told me about Booth. _Booth, unsurprised by old Jared's actions and remembering the incident vividly, still felt winded by his accusations. Brother versus brother was never pretty.

_Your snide insinuations that he chose to shy away from success were veiled in flattery and practiced charm. I, who am never a good judge of character, am ashamed to say that I fell for it like some gullible fool on the street, who believes in magic tricks instead of sequential lines of awareness. When you kissed me –_

Booth let his sniper reflexes drop the letter so fast he had already stepped on it before viscerally jumping backwards, feeling as if he had left his guts sitting down where they now rested in his ankles as he bounded up. He began to pace, sick at heart, and to his stomach. He jolted into the bathroom, gripping the sides of the sink hard, wondering if he actually _was_ going to be sick. He stared wildly at his own reflection. It was drawn, pale and very unattractive with its wide eyes and gaping mouth, gasping in air. Booth berated himself. He was very proud of being attractive and this reaction was very unappealing. He tried to straighten up, but could hardly contrive to resurrect some color back into his cheeks.

His quick and frantic pacing was making loud galomping sounds. He slipped soundlessly out of his shoes – an old sniper trick - as he paced some more. He realized he was halfway naked when the door shyly opened. Booth finished yanking on his shorts and turned around reproachfully, his body still surging with the potent energy of jealousy and regret.

"Hi," Brennan said quietly. Booth wanted to groan when he saw Angela also brushing her dark hair up against Brennan's as she attempted to peer through the crack in the door. Booth cursed mentally. Angela was much, much better at reading facial expressions – even concealed – than Brennan was. He could have fooled his partner. Angela's eyes brightened with interest even as her countenance darkened with reprimand. She could tell he was angry. Was that what he was feeling? Anger?

Booth didn't have time to psychoanalyze himself under their glare and thus missed the significant looks between the two women, Angela actually licking her chops at the sight of his bare chest and matching bare feet. He shrugged carelessly into a sleeveless shirt that used to be from his favorite bar in his rookie days.

"Come on in," he said, shrugging carelessly as he thoughtlessly put on socks.

"What's wrong with your socks?" Brennan immediately asked, and not for the first time Booth wished his partner wasn't as observant as she was (which made it doubly humorous she seemed unaware that she was so observant).

Booth glanced down, nonplussed. He bent his toes upwards and frowned. Normal white socks peeped back up at him.

"Nothing," he shrugged. He stuffed his feet into sneakers and then swooped down to pick up the letter from the floor, sliding it back into its corresponding envelope. He couldn't put it in the hiding spot/underwear drawer while she was looking and so, in frustration, tucked it under the phone, trying to make it look unimportant.

"You've gotten a lot of mail on this case," Brennan mused as she leaned against the wall. Her spot on accusations were unnerving and grating on Booth's frayed temper.

"Standard stuff," he managed to cough out. Her socks comment was still bothering him but he shrugged it off.

"Going to work out?" Angela asked throatily. Booth hated the way she could make anything sound dirty.

"Just standard stuff," he repeated brusquely. She seemed unperturbed by his monotonous answers. So did, for that matter, Brennan. She was unaware anything was wrong; Angela was just the opposite.

"Sure you're not running to get out some extra…energy?" Angela asked sweetly. Booth shot her a _look_; he wasn't even sure what he was trying to say, but Angela wisely backed off.

"Oh," said Brennan, crestfallen. Booth's heart, already mangled with hatred at both her and Jared on the one hand, ached for her little girl look on the other. "We were going to go out with Cam to lunch to celebrate her being released."

"And for the most failtacular case ever," Angela cheeped. Booth raised an eyebrow in spite of himself. He needed to get away.

"Because…" Angela explained, as if he had actually questioned. "Everyone is hurt? And everyone is cranky?"

"I'm not hurt," Booth automatically responded.

"I'm not cranky!" Brennan objected simultaneously. They both looked at each other.

"Yes you are," Booth said and realized Brennan had said it at the same time as well.

"What?" they echoed again. Angela mock covered her ears.

"Dear God, get off the same radio frequency and talk one at a time like normal people!"

"She's not normal," Booth defended loyally, as if this was a good thing. Brennan sniffed but he could tell she was flattered and pleased.

"You have bruises all over your legs Booth," she reminded him. "So you're hurt too."

"And you are cranky," Booth retorted, feeling more cantankerous himself upon realizing he couldn't wear the shorts he had on to the gym without severely scaring the other members. He strode leggily back to his drawers to see if he had brought sweatpants. He plucked out some that were all sandy; they were the ones he had worn to bed and fallen asleep in the ring. He sniffed them, typical man style. They smelled like they were three days old. Perfectly acceptable. He realized Brennan and Angela were making disgusted faces. He glanced at them and waved the pants in one hand as a gesture.

"Do you mind?"

"No of course not," Brennan said blithely, "go ahead and change." Angela grinned wickedly, Brennan's naivete funnier than if Angela had made the joke herself.

"Sweetie, I think he wants us to leave." Brennan stared at her then back at Booth. He nodded. Her face went from unassuming to comically surprised.

"Oh. Yes. Well then, have fun at the gym. You sure you don't want to come out to lunch?"

"I'm fine," Booth smiled; it felt tawdry and cheap when he realized how very much he'd like to kiss Brennan until she was bruised with a primal urgency to erase any taint of Jared still lingering after the years.

She closed the door. Booth could still hear their last lingering words as they walked down the hall. Angela was talking.

"What's wrong with his socks? They looked fine to me." Brennan's troubled voice was very soft as she was far along the corridor towards the elevator.

"They match."

_Well fuck_, Booth fumed and peeled those off too.

* * *

Booth was lucky she had left. He had a satisfying workout despite the crinkling letter in his left pocket and the scandalized looks at his dirty sweatpants. He wondered where Brennan had laundered his shirt. He would probably need those sweatpants again. But he was saved the asking by the thundering crash down of Wendell Bray who found the crucial piece of evidence that solved their case. Booth wanted to laugh at the kid's excited voice on the phone. The sister did it. Of course she did.

Booth showered at the hotel, dressing well for the final confrontation, and hauled Brennan up by the scruff of the neck and took her out to the on site trailer/rv. It came equipped with a very uncomfortable cot, shiny kitchen table and a tiny shower. He would have scrubbed her hair for her too, grumbling that she couldn't show up in front of their witnesses smelling like a horse, if she hadn't caught him full in the face with the handheld shower head.

"Why can't I go to the hotel?" she griped as Booth bellowed and grappled for control for the spray.

"You're getting me wet!" he screeched. He was embarrassed to realize he sounded like a little girl.

"I hate the water pressure here," she insisted. He slammed her up against the shower wall, struggling to pull the hose out of her hands.

"Seems fine to me."

"Get off!" she panted and shoved him back. They fell against another wall and slid to the ground in the water. She landed on top of him and for a brief, perfect moment, Booth realized her face was inches from his, lips ripe for the taking and cheeks flushed with exertion. She paused, and he could _feel_ her breath catch in her lungs against his torso, and he was dimly aware of the shower water raining down like a perfect Hollywood rainstorm around their faces, shielded from his eyes by her tousled, dripping hair. He wanted so badly to kiss her he could feel his fingers curling into her back to keep her from escaping; even as he did so he realized if he forced himself upon her, it would be construed as a sort of attack – a rape of her trust of him. He reluctantly let his fingers uncurl. She seemed unaware of his struggle, still lost in the moment with her big blue eyes. He didn't have time to register her grin before she sprayed him full in the face and tried to get up. He tackled her around the waist. He laughed and spluttered.

"Bones! My mouth was open and everything!"

"Booth!" she shrieked; he had accidentally clapped his hand over her breast. He blushed fire truck red and tried to stumble back; the shower was so intensely tiny he cracked his head against the wall and rebounded back into her stomach, causing her to bend over, laughing.

"Bend over!" she wheezed. "Bend over so you can get up!"

Outside the door, Sweets and Hodgins exchanged a terrified glance.

"After you," muttered Hodgins, hearing another bash and Brennan's barked instructions and muffled giggles over the showerhead.

"I'm sure they're just…"

"Yeah of course," agreed Hodgins.

"Right," nodded Sweets.

"The soap! The soap BONES! It's in my eye! It's supposed to go on _you!_"

"Dear God," gulped Sweets again.

The trailer gave another convulsive shudder with a smashing sound of two bodies hitting the wall.

"_You're_ the trained shrink," Hodgins griped. "Shouldn't you know if they're…you know…"

"They're not!" Sweets barked in a high pitched yip that coincided with Brennan's muffled,

"Can you take that off?" Booth's garbled response was simply:

"You need more shampoo."

Hodgins began desperately backing away.

"I can't go in there _now,_" he whined desperately. "Booth will literally _shoot_ me."

"What's going on?" Angela had flounced up with Cam, the original four reunited.

"I'm going to…" Booth's growl was cut off by something wet smacking against something else.

"Oh. My. God." Angela's eyes were bright and eager. Sweets' face was lobster.

Inside, Booth was furiously scrubbing shampoo through Brennan's hair while Brennan pettily squirted him with the foul smelling hand soap that hospitals used as body wash in decontamination showers.

"This is my best suit," he griped.

"Stop washing me!" she shrieked. Outside, Cam put a hand to the trailer and doubled over, laughing so hard she was absolutely silent.

"We need to move it," Booth informed Brennan, clapping his hands, which to the audience, sounded as if he was smacking something else.

"Would you like me to take it all off?" she griped sweetly, and he sprayed her with a faceful of water for her pains.

Outside, Hodgins groaned in agony.

The door swung open clipping Sweets as he turned around, ready to creep away.

Sopping wet and leaving puddles on the stairs, Brennan loftily descended, her hair plastered to her face, and her shirt plastered to her body thin enough to see through. Booth stomped moodily after her, his suit dripping little rivulet waterfalls with his squeaky black shoes collecting the dust as he stood next to her. She shivered and refused to look at him.

"Okay," he said cheerfully. "Let's go." She gave him a sullen glare. Booth leaned in for an exaggerated sniff. "Much better." His eyes inadvertently snagged at the perfect view down her v-neck shirt and he gulped, standing up to swallow and look away. She crossly crossed her arms.

"We can't go like this."

"Sure we can. We're clean. We can say we were chasing someone through the river."

"I need a hair dryer."

"Oh, we'll open all the windows, you can stick your head out. Same thing," Booth smiled cheekily, in a better mood than in days. The shower had washed away more than the grime of the ring.

Brennan stormed past, her face still glowing with soap and secret delight. She walked over to Booth's black suv not fifteen feet away. The rest of their friends watched silently as she opened the backdoor and rifled around. Within seconds she was marching back, head held high with a complete change of clothes, excluding shoes.

"Where did you get that?" demanded Booth. Brennan turned on him.

"I keep it in your car."

"Where? I've never seen that."

"Are you upset because I didn't pack you a change of clothes too?" she smiled angelically. Booth ground his teeth together. Some days she was a product of the devil.

"Where did you keep those?"

"I didn't tell you," Brennan answered, as if he had actually asked the question on his mind aloud. "Because I didn't want you to worry about Parker finding my underwear or something else you would whine about."

"_Whine _about?" fumed Booth, "_whine about_…" his mind stopped as his throat stopped up. "Your underwear has been riding around in my car?"

"Underneath the seat cushions," she scoffed. "Hardly the likely place a little boy would go sticking his hand-"

"That's exactly where boys stick their hands!" Booth stormed. Cam, who had just recovered and was holding a hand to her aching and raw abdomen, doubled back over, laughing afresh and Angela joined her in giggling, hers doubly loud for Cam's silence as she gagged her hilarity.

"I didn't tell you," stressed Brennan, "because you'd get all upset about me crossing lines. 'You're my partner,'" she parroted in a high pitched voice that sounded nothing like him. For some strange reason, Hodgins started laughing. "'Not my girlfriend,' or 'you can't keep your clothes in my car, people will get the wrong idea!'"

"Bones!"

"Well I'm changing," she told him severely. "And you're just mad that you don't have anything else to wear. I'll just braid my hair if we really aren't stopping at the hotel."

"Well what am I supposed to do?" he whined as she started up the trailer steps. She spun around with another perfectly tempestuous angelic smile.

"Oh, we'll open the car windows and you can stick your head out. It'll be just like a hair dryer." With that she slammed the trailer door. Booth turned a murderous look on the Peanut Gallery.

"Not a word," he growled and squelched off towards his car to try to wring out his pants before Brennan could get there.


	13. And The Fears Whispering

**So this is only the completion of the previous letter; I had planned to write two letters, but this chapter became very long very quickly with Brennan's dream sequence. Sorry for all of those who wanted two letters!**

**

* * *

**He sauntered up to where Angela and Cam were pulling their luggage to his suv; they were the first ones out. He gave them his best charming smile.

"I need a girl." He wiggled a finger between the two, 'eenie, meenie, miney moing' silently as their faces blossomed into twin grins.

"A girl huh?" asked Angela in her typical sultry voice. Booth's metronome finger stopped on her.

"Well I guess that leaves Angela." Cam scowled and rolled her eyes, shrugging as she said,

"I'm going to try and hurry along Brennan."

"Tell Hodgins to hurry up will you?" Angela called as Cam started to take off. She grinned over her shoulder sweetly at Booth.

"You can put my suitcase in the car." Booth huffed; Cam always packed heavy. Angela's wide grin faded as she turned back and raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"What do you need?"

"I'm wounded," Booth winced, "your tone suggests I'm being –"

"A dick?" Angela offered. Booth scowled for real this time. Angela laughed and then crossed her arms.

"Okay what do you want?"

"I kinda need to recreate an exact copy of this shoebox collage," Booth blurted. His mind raced to come up with a plausible story. "See, it was…" he fumbled before having a stroke of genius, "…Rebecca's. I was playing catch in the house with Parker waiting for her," he hung his head guiltily, almost believing himself, "and it got flattened. I had to stuff it under the couch. Unfortunately it was her favorite box in the world so…"

"So instead of manning up and _telling her_ you're asking me to help you lie?" Booth flinched again.

"It sounds so _wrong_ when you put it that way," he pouted. He stuck out his lower lip. "Oh please, oh please," Booth begged, his eyes wide. He gave her another charming fanboy smile. "Come on, I'll babysit your kid or something. I'll get you back somehow. I'll do anything." Booth regretted the words before they left his mouth, but realized they were the truth. He would do just about anything to avoid the confrontation with Brennan.

"Pose for me in the nude?" Suggested Angela slyly. Booth blushed, rethinking his options. Angela waved a hand. "Oh come on I wasn't serious. Of course I'll do it. Anything to avoid the wrath of your ex."

"You're the best!" Booth exclaimed. He swooped Angela up and squeezed her in a bone crushing congratulatory bear hug.

"Ow," she said in a tiny voice. He set her back on her feet. She grinned foolishly. Booth suddenly frowned.

"It has to be perfect," he warned, "properly aged and everything, same gloss, same pictures, same _everything._"

"All right! I'll run it through the angelator to stimulate damage control." He scuffed his foot guiltily.

"Well in that case," muttered booth, hot around the collar, "I might have stamped it flat to kick under the couch."

"Men" was Angela's only comment as she strode off to wrangle Hodgins back into the car.

* * *

"Where is Bones?" barked Booth for the fourth time. The squinterns and the squint squad were spread out across the pit that used to be a ring. Booth had to keep the bulldozer from filling in the hole four times as the impatient owner waited for them to clear out. Booth finally sent Sweets with Daisy and the rest of the squints into a van back to DC. He didn't envy that car ride. Cam had flatly refused to ride with the love struck but awkward couple and so Booth was driving back Hodgins, Angela, Cam, Brennan and himself in his SUV. They were all ready to go, and his partner was missing.

Typical.

Booth's eye caught on the RV. He realized beyond a shadow of a doubt she had to be inside, deaf to their calls. Of course, probably examining x-rays last minute.

He left the door open behind him as he creaked his way up the stairs. His puffed up lungs deflated like a farting balloon – the way Parker liked to stretch out the mouth of the latex – when he tried not to smile upon seeing her fast asleep at the tiny table. Her hair was cascading out from her scalp in waves and she was breathing heavily with her mouth open over her folded hands, ear pillowed over one elbow.

He didn't wake her right away, content to slide into the seat across from her, arms pillowed in front of him, his own face inches from hers as he watched her, waiting childishly for her to wake up and be startled. He blew on her face gently. Her nose wrinkled. He varied the puffed breaths and her lips parted wider before smacking together. He directed the jet stream at her hair. It fluffed up like a volcano had erupted under a strand. Booth forgot he was trying to wake her and grinned in delight, enjoying his game. He sucked in another breath to muss up more of her hair before she spoke.

"Don't." He sputtered in surprise and then laughed.

"You really had me going there Bones." She didn't open her eyes. He childishly blew on her face again, trying to get her mile long lashes to flutter.

"Don't," she said, her voice more irritated. Booth's cheeky grin crept up one corner of his face in delight. He blew in her ear.

"Please stop pouring dirt on me." Booth stopped himself from licking the inside of her ear for one hell of a wet willy at the outrageous comment she was had just said.

"What?"

"Stop," she tossed a little, her body convulsing, and the chair grating over the floor with a horrible screech.

"Bones," Booth said, his teasing tone gone, his voice urgent now. He put his hand over hers.

"Please," she whispered. "I can't breathe."

* * *

_Brennan looked around, nonplussed. Her father was next to her and they were at the park. The one their family used to have picnics at. She walked aimlessly and then smiled, spotting their destination. She turned around and started walking backwards._

_ "Dad, you shouldn't have! A picnic?" She kept stepping backwards as her father's face wreathed itself in smiles. _

_ "It'll be like old times, you're mother is here too."_

_ "What?" she asked in disbelief, her face flickering lightning fast from joy to shock as the back of her heel met only air and she stumbled, falling backwards. She gasped up, staring at her father standing at the edge of the hole. She realized the sky was framed in a rectangular dirt frame. A grave. _

_ "Hi Temperance," said her mother's voice, and Brennan, gasping, tears forming, turned around hoping against hope that it could be possible. She screamed when she saw the decomposing corpse lying on the ground. Her mother's face was partially visible, yet the flesh was rotting off of her ribcage, the flies swarming around her viscous fluids. _

_ "Lie down honey," her mother said, and wrapped a skeletal arm around her leg. Brennan realized her ankle was injured when she stumbled and collapsed under the pressure from the tendon laced fingers gripping the outside of her jeans. She was hyperventilating as she was forced down, her face not six inches from her mother's. _

_ "What's wrong baby?" asked her mother, and as she spoke a maggot bulged under the flesh of her cheek. Temperance – for she was no longer Brennan – watched in morbid fascination as the tiny larvae slowly ruptured the skin and ate its way out. Her mother seemed unaware of it. _

_ Temperance curled up into herself, shrinking from her mother's fluttering, helpless hands as she whined a sob._

_ "Death is nice," her mother said quietly. Temperance felt something rain down on her face and she squinted her eyes up at the sky. _

_ "Don't worry honey," called Max cheerfully, pouring another shovelful of dirt down to rain on them. _

_ "Mommy's here," chorused Christine Brennan. Heather Taffet appeared next to her father. _

_ "Goodnight," she smiled sweetly, and rained another shovelful down. "Don't let the grave bugs bite."_

_ "Don't," said Temperance quietly. She realized she could still climb out. Hope relieved her of her fear. She struggled to sit up. However, upon looking down she realized her muscles were suddenly peeling away from her bones. She screamed. She struggled to sit up more and her mother's hand was suddenly on her shoulder, holding her down._

_ "Don't," Temperance barked at her. The dirt was getting in her mouth. She swallowed some just in order to talk some more. She reached her hand up for her father, hoping he would reach down for her. Another shovel rained down and the plucky face of Zack beamed out from behind._

_ "Hi Dr. Brennan!" he waved. "You look like you've been dead for six weeks!" She felt something horrible crawling along under her skin. She looked down and realized her own body was in the state of putrefaction, the insects bursting out of it. She panted, feeling her blood drain away, her saliva dry up. She tried to swallow but she hardly had an esophagus. _

_"Please stop pouring dirt on me!" she whispered. The soil was drying her out. She could feel her skin tightening like the worst sun burn she ever had. It peeled off of her skull, her vocal cords stripping away. She had seen it happen so many times. The dirt was up to her neck, her mother's insistent hand still trying to drag her down through the earth. Her father relentlessly shoveled. She could see a whole train of people, lined up to pour dirt on her grave, a shovelful at a time. He turned away to be replaced by the gravedigger, to be replaced by Zack, to be replaced by Gormogon, to be replaced by Epps to be replaced by…_

_ "Please stop…" she barely managed to whisper but her vocal cords were working hard enough to scream as she heaved against the heavy weight on her chest. "…I can't breathe."_

_A huge wind picked up across the plane and the last shovelful of dirt flew into her face, effectively blackening her world. _

_

* * *

_

"Bones!" she came awake with a gasp, her hand suddenly tightening in his own to bloodless; she jolted up, running her hands through her hair, wrenching her grip from his. She glanced around and looked at him, so obviously trying to speak normally.

"Booth." She shuddered a huge sigh. She was trying to conceal that she had a nightmare. She didn't realize how long he had been present.

"What can I get you?" Booth blurted, ignoring her wish to politely saving face. His concern was too great to trifle with such trivialities. "What do you need?"

"Water," she gasped, striding stiff legged to the sink, and turning it on. She stuck both her cupped hands beneath it and slurped hungrily, then gave it up as too slow and cast around for a cup. Booth was already there, cup filling under the tap. She didn't _quite_ snatch it from his grasp.

On the stairs, Hodgins saw the two partners and opened his mouth to berate them for keeping everyone waiting. Out of their view, he realized Brennan was drinking…rather, trying to drink. She was trembling so hard the cup was visibly shaking up and down in front of her lips like a jackhammer, and she was obviously frustrated. The more she tried to clamp down, the harder her arm shook. Booth was instantly at her side once more, and helping tip the bottom of the cup up.

"Easy," he whispered to her. "Easy does it." She didn't protest, to Booth's relief and Hodgins' disbelief. He backed away slowly, not willing to intrude.

Booth carefully stroked the length of Brennan's cheek as she gulped the water down hungrily.

"I'm so thirsty," she gasped again, refilling the cup herself this time. This was her third.

Booth was immediately inundated with guilt. Had his childish games, his source of amusement, contributed to her terror? He placed a heavy hand on a heaving shoulder and was shocked to realize her heart was thundering.

"Come on," she said suddenly, shrugging off his hand mulishly, as if he were the one annoying _her_, instead of her terrifying them both. "Let's get to the car, I'm sure the others have been waiting for a while."

Outside, the others were cloistered around the car. One raised eyebrow from Brennan and Angela slunk hopefully from the front seat to the back, the hierarchy of shotgun apparently still applying as adults.

"Hodgins," Booth barked, gesturing the other man over as Cam strapped herself in next to Angela.

Hodgins came forward semi-reluctantly and semi-bewildered.

"What's up man?"

"You were in that trailer." Booth's voice was to the point and his words harder than the iron lines of his scowl.

"How could you-" began Hodgins. He hadn't been in his line of sight, he was _positive_.

"Sniper, remember?" Booth gestured sarcastically to his ears. Hodgins raised his eyebrows in respect.

"What, do I have a distinct smell? A certain tread? Something like that?"

"Something like that," Booth agreed absently, his face still murderous, his hands still fisted into his pockets.

"Let's just say it stays in the trailer ok? I don't want you making Brennan feel-"

"Hey," Hodgins threw up his hands defensively. "I get thirsty too."

"I'm _serious_ Hodgins," snarled Booth.

"So am I," Hodgins said, blue eyes wide, and honest. Booth's dark ones flickered across his face and his face lost the edge that had Hodgins sweating. He didn't lose the scowl, but he no longer looked quite as imposing. Instead, Hodgins saw concern literally etched into the flesh of Booth's face, in the little lines between his eyebrows from the endless "special frowns" he reserved especially for Brennan. Evidently, Booth understood that Hodgins understood they were talking about the gravedigger nightmares. Booth had inferred that much from Brennan's prodigious water consumption. She had been like a sponge. Or bounty-quicker-picker-upper. Booth realized he was distracted, and in all probability scaring Hodgins.

"Ok," called Cam loudly. "Eight hour road trip, anyone?"

"Shoot me," Hodgins mumbled. Booth clapped him on the shoulder and steered him to the car.

"With pleasure."

* * *

"So can I drive?" chirruped Brennan cheerfully. Booth scowled, his mood foul. They were at their third gas station, to over compensate for both Angela's tiny pregnant bladder and Brennan's incredible thirst.

"No," stormed Booth, a headache pounding between his eyes. He stumped off towards the bathroom and groaned seeing that it was a single room on the outside of the building. He shut the door and put his back up against it; he didn't even have to pee. He just needed _space_. Too many people in one car. Not to mention the letter burning a hole over his heart in his jacket pocket.

Booth slipped it out and unfolded it; this was one of the worse for wear letters. His panic upon Brennan storming into his room had made him clench his fist and squash it as he tucked it under the phone. Booth set the sole of his shoe against the door behind him and unfolded the letter, scrubbing it across his knee to relieve the creases.

He felt like crap already, so why not use his already established bad mood to trick Brennan into thinking nothing more was wrong? Especially since he felt sure he was about to rip his soul out when finding out what happened between Brennan and Jared.

_November 12__th__, 2008_

_Jared,_

_This is completely irrational and written in anger. And I still reek of the beer you slopped all over me when I shoved you off your stool in that bar. But I cannot believe the lies, the falsehoods, the deceit and the cruelty, which you led me to believe the lies you told me about Booth. Your snide insinuations that he chose to shy away from success were veiled in flattery and practiced charm. I, who am never a good judge of character, am ashamed to say that I fell for it like some gullible fool on the street, who believes in magic tricks instead of sequential lines of awareness. _

_When you kissed me –_

Booth swallowed hard but finished the line, finally, forcing himself in a sort of sadism to keep going. _– I was shocked. Surprised, pleasantly, I'll admit_ – Booth wanted to strangle himself – _but also upset. Your words, while cruel, rang true._

_ "I bet you Seeley never had the guts to do that."_ Booth hadn't realized it would be so hard to read this letter. Jared's cruelty, purposeful or not, was shocking and much too reminiscent of their father.

_The fact that Cam staged an intervention on my behalf to warn me away from Jared – _Booth almost laughed and felt a surge of love towards his friend. She had known them for a long time. She was so loyal, like pit bull at times, but still somebody he liked to have on his side as evidenced by the letter in his hands.

_-it surprised me. Angela too, and even Sweets, all informed me of my impaired judgments when it came to you. I was just so hungry to learn more about Booth – he's woefully quiet when it comes to his own past – that I didn't heed them. I wanted to know more. I think I learned too much. _

Booth stumbled. What did she mean, she learned too much? What had Jared said? He was going to pulverize that kid.

_What I learned about Booth is of no importance in contrast to what I learned about myself. While I am disgusted with cruelty, I am surprisingly capable of it, intentionally or not. I realize now that I've caused Booth great pain, and it distresses me that I do not know how to repair it._

Her penmanship suddenly transformed as it so often did in the letters to great, slashing strokes, bold with anguish and with rage.

_ Jared, why did you create so much friction? Why did Sweets guess from what you told him that Booth was abused? Why did Cam have to confirm it? Why, now when I look at my partner, I feel a deep sense of shame? It's not because I see him as weak, as he would probably believe, but strong. I want to tell him that I understand, but the conversation can never quite force its way past my teeth. There have been many moments when it came close, such as when Booth broke his arm on his birthday to save my life. _

_ But what could I say to him?_

_ Booth, I know what it feels like to be so afraid of someone, you duck on the other side of the car when you glimpse him coming out of the house? Or maybe, I know what it's like to sit in fear at the dinner table your heart pounding so hard you can barely swallow, much less eat, and then worry that your lack of eating will somehow offend him. When he calls on you for dinner conversation, you try to appear normal, but your heart is racing so much you are on the verge of hyperventilating, in fear of giving the wrong answer. In fear of having a sandwich thrown at my head, or worse, a knife thrown at my cheek. _

_Perhaps I should have told him I understand tiptoeing down the hall for a glass of water in the night because I was too scared to walk normally in a house that wasn't really mine. Perhaps I should have told him that the kind teachers who stared at the visible bruises thought I was an aggressive athlete. Booth would like that; he was an athlete. _

Booth was finding it difficult to breathe around his swollen throat. It felt very tight, blocked with the memories of his father and almost identical memories to Brennan's. He wondered if Jared felt these tragedies. Probably not; he didn't remember as much, nor had he been as subjected to the abuse.

"Booth!" there was a pounding on the door and Hodgins' voice was filtering through the cracks in a muffled sort of way. "We're all ready to go!"

"And I have to pee!" squealed Angela. Booth realized he had a paragraph left. He pulled his foot off the door and lost his reading pad.

"Just a minute!" he called back; he realized they all probably thought he was terribly constipated and scrambled for an excuse. "I had to make a call!"

"Right," Angela smirked in a tone that left little to the imagination what _she_ thought he was doing. Booth felt his face burn. He crinkled the paper under the light and with one foot pushed the handle of the toilet down so it would flush while he read. He also turned on the sink with the other hand as he squinted at the paper.

_Jared, Angela was right. You are only a shadow form of Booth. You lack the courage of warfare Booth has seen. Your own wars have been with yourself, and I pity you. I hope you will find someone someday who will appreciate you for who you are, but I can only be disappointed. I had hoped, somehow, you would be like Booth. That I could have the best of both worlds and be with you without losing Booth as my partner. _

Booth felt nauseated as his hand found the door handle.

_If I'm honest with myself, I know that Booth is more than my partner, and you saw that as well and jeopardized it. Don't you understand that Booth is the only person who hasn't looked at me, really looked, and not shied away? Don't you see why I can't take that chance with him? I know, rationally, the odds of anyone ever seeing me the way he does will never again occur. I'm not like other people; I cannot fall in love easily._

Booth wasn't sure he was capable of thought, and felt his neck shrug into his hunched shoulders defensively as he finished the last few lines.

_ You wanted me for the wrong reasons Jared: out of spite. _

_ And I'm glad I said no. _

_ Honestly,_

_ Temperance_

Booth realized he was blinking in the sunlight, Angela staring stupefied at his probably dazed face. He swallowed and shoved the letter in his pocket.

"Some phone call," she grinned with raised eyebrows. Booth went inside the mini mart to pour himself some coffee. Brennan was there between the aisles; Booth could see the top half of her face. He crept down the adjacent aisle, content to stare between the packages of beef jerky as her blue eyes roved the shelves for something she could eat. Suddenly her eyes flicked up and went wide upon seeing him peering down at her between two chocolate bars. He cheekily stuffed his face between two boxes.

"Pick me!" he whispered theatrically. "Pick me!" Laughingly, she reached up and gently tweaked his nose. He squeezed his eyes shut and grinned. How he desperately wished picking him was that easy.

"Booth you are so strange," Brennan commented. She picked up a package of gummy bears and held it up to him.

"Those look good," he grinned, coming around the edge of the aisle.

"Gelatin is made with bone marrow," she informed him. Booth felt his stomach turn.

"Seriously?" Brennan nodded, a smile tugging her lips.

"And petrol."

"That's disgusting," Booth backed away in revulsion.

"Hardly Booth," she scoffed. "I could tell you the countless items that are made with-"

"That's okay," he hastily interrupted. He plucked the package from her hands. "Mmm, bone marrow bears." He peeked out from under one eyelid. "Yeah, doesn't sound as good."

She, to his credit, laughed. To his surprise, as Bones rarely joked, she grabbed his jacket sleeve and dragged him to the counter.

"One coffee," she told the bored looking woman, gesturing behind her to the coffee counter. Behind her Booth held up two fingers.

"Make it two."

"These gummy bears," she grinned, plucking them dexterously from his fingers. She scanned the shelves. "Dried pineapple. And…" she pretended to survey the store, never letting go of his hand. "This man." He felt himself stumble forward as she yanked him off his feet, placing his hand within scanning distance. Booth laughed when he realized she had somehow stuck a barcode to the back of his hand.

"How much do I ring up for?" he asked the cashier seriously. The woman, who looked about fifty, obligingly beeped the scanner over his wrist.

The machine buzzed and Booth gasped at the number.

"99 _cents_! Seriously?"

"And look," Brennan sang sweetly, "you come up as dried bean curds."

"_What?"_ Booth yelped. "Gross!"

"Not at all," sniffed Brennan, "they're an excellent source of protein for vegetarians."

"You think bean curds – which by the way, sound like the poop from bean poles – sound good, but brightly colored gummy bears sound like _bone marrow?_" He grabbed the package to underscore his gesture as he waggled it in front of her face.

"At least you're my type," she smiled and finally let go of his hand. Disgruntled, Booth yanked it back and shoved it into his pocket.

"Sir I'm going to need that barcode," the woman said in a monotone. Guiltily, Booth pulled it off but then compulsively stuck it on the back of Brennan's jeans so lightly that she didn't feel his hand – which wanted to linger – on her bottom. Booth winked conspiratorially at the cashier who looked impatient.

Brennan was pouring coffee.

"Come on Booth," she said over her shoulder to him, gesturing for him to give it back.

"I would," he smiled devilishly, "but I don't think I'm allowed to touch where it's stuck." Brennan immediately looked down at herself and Booth almost swallowed his tongue to realize she thought he had slipped it either over one of her breasts or down her shirt.

"Other side," he choked and Brennan twisted around, both hands groping her back trying to find it. Somehow she managed to grab her ass with both hands simultaneously. Booth almost busted something and hastily turned to get the waiting plastic bag; he couldn't watch her peel the sticker off, but he could hear it slowly coming away from dark denim.

Brennan huffed past and handed it politely to the cashier.

"Where's my coffee?" Booth whined as she stalked out. She ignored him.

"Just so you know," Cam said, and Booth whirled around, not realizing she had been standing behind them in line the entire time. "Ass grabbing is not strictly work appropriate." She winked as she set her items down and Booth strode out the door, face on fire.


	14. If She Stands

**I felt that happy time was over now.**

* * *

Booth stretched luxuriously in front of his computer screen in his office. The case had gone well, despite the glitches. It would take months to go to trial, but meanwhile he was positive some fat cat upstairs was writing him a little appreciation bonus. It wasn't so unlikely. His birthday was coming up soon.

He had Parker for the weekend and he was quietly happy. He had walked Brennan back to her door and practically locked her in her bedroom before smuggling out the letterbox from beneath her couch. It looked worse than he had remembered. He had quickly rearranged her shelving space; it was noticeably absent. He hoped he had bought himself a few days at least before she became aware. It wasn't as if she cleaned that often, though Booth knew he shouldn't be such a hypocrite.

As it was, Angela was already reconstructing it, scanning the images and reprinting the scenes on magazine paper in order to make them more authentic. Booth had already stacked the rest of the letters together. There were only a few unopened ones left.

The rest he had carefully ironed between wax paper and put gingerly back into their envelopes. Some of them he hadn't been able to save from the damages. Jared's letter was wrinkled beyond hope. Similarly, the poem written on a napkin was runny with sweat. He hoped she wouldn't open the letters for a long time. The hardest part was figuring out which envelopes were which as her addresses were not always clear. All of the letters had been unsealed save the one to her father. Booth had given up and simply replaced that envelope and left it unaddressed but resealed in an unmarked white envelope.

However, he hadn't been able to resist sneaking one to his office. He had been good all day, desperately talking to Sweets, feeling like an addict as he sweated about his collar, his gaze drawn compulsively to the drawer over, and over, and over. Sweets – if he had noticed – hadn't reacted to his cravings. Booth had shooed him away and tried to file a report. His headache had mounted within minutes; he took aspirin. In another hour he found himself aching for release, and not in the usual way when he thought about his partner.

He finally gustily sighed, called Bones up and telling her he would be working late and to go ahead and eat without him. He briefly dwelled on the fact that they even acted like a couple in their eating habits; they always checked in to make sure the other never had to dine alone if so inclined.

At last.

Booth let out a long, shuddering breath, savoring the moment the way an addict does while loading the needle, knowing salvation was so close by. Booth was familiar with the call; it was the same siren song as the safety he used to feel outside the glowing neons of a casino. He wasn't gambling yet, but the immediate vicinity and willingness were almost as good as the real thing.

He opened the drawer, hearing the soft scrape, his ears preternaturally sharp for any intrusions. This letter was addressed hastily, as if Brennan hadn't been sure who to make it out to.

_Letter to the Past_

It was vague and complicated. Booth furrowed his eyebrows as he unfurled it with a shake of one hand.

The letter began without salutation, which was unusual in Booth's limited experience.

_July 31__st,__ 2009_

_ Yesterday I received a surprising letter in the mail. It was from myself, from when I was eleven years old. I remember that day quite vividly; in fifth grade we built a time capsule. Then we all took a field trip to the post office and posted letters we had written to ourselves twenty years in the future. I had this curious sensation of déjà vu. I felt that simultaneously as I was penning the letter, there was a person staring over my shoulder, answering the questions. I felt as if my older self was there next to me reading it. _

_ When I read it last night it had the opposite effect; across the table sat a solemn eyed little girl, her bangs still sweaty from soccer practice and the imprint of too-tight science goggles ringing her eyes. She was so happy. So blissfully, wonderfully happy. Fifth grade was an awkward time; when my limbs (her limbs?) were too gangly because I had grown so much faster than my classmates, and I was discovering acne wasn't a pleasant side effect and that wearing both a bra and deodorant made getting dressed that much slower when I wanted to go outside and play. _

_ That little girl didn't live in the real world; she had a rabid love for science fiction, which was rife with inaccuracies that she would later disappointedly come to realize. She lived in __Ender's Game__, and Isaac Asimov's world of bright glittering fantasy only to be torn away from the entrancing pages and ensnaring ink with a groan when her mother called her to help with dishes, whining that Russ should help too. _

Booth felt his heart squeeze. Here in this letter, dated a mere year before, he finally glimpsed into Tempe, the youngest yet and the most beautiful, achingly unshattered aspect of herself. He knew where Brennan was going with the letter, and he felt as if that very little girl sat across from his own empty office's desk, radiating purity, energy and eagerness.

_The girl who wrote that letter, impatiently counting off the days, the weeks, the years until she slowly forgot its existence, used to sing in the car. She used to belt out Disney songs hoping against hope a talent scout would scoop her up and make her famous. She wanted to be glamorous but also be the next Mia Hamm. She used to pretend to be a shuttle pilot for NASA, being the first person – not just man – to walk on Mars. She used to play intense educational games and logic puzzles that her father bought her to please him and to beat her brother. She used to like to draw. She used to like to dance before she found she couldn't. She used to like chicken nuggets and fish sticks. She used to like to laugh. She used to like to even smile. _

_She used to. She used to. She used to. _

_I __used to._

_ And now I don't. _

_ And as I sat, reading that letter, staring out of the corner of my eye at that young imaginary girl staring at me across the table, hope scrawled across her features, I found myself crying. Sobbing, actually, and ignoring the call from my partner and the text wondering if I wanted take out. _

_ Because I didn't realized how much I had changed. How much I had lost. _

_ So this letter is to her, twenty years too late, full of caution and optimism, cynicism and love, to this little part of my soul that broke away. Because I _finally_ realized who she is. _

_ She's the missing third. _

_ The third of myself that went away when my parents left. When Russ left. When Zack left. She left. She's the child covered in blood that I can't show anyone else. She's the innocent, perfect part of me that I'm afraid to bring out again because I both don't want to tarnish her memory, or let her taint my life. I've become a completely different person, one she wouldn't recognize. I'm both ashamed, and grateful I can lock her away. _

_ So in response to that letter, I'm writing her…me…the answers to those fateful 10 questions. _

Booth glanced down the page. His heart seized up when he realized the paper was different: torn, sticky and pasted back together. Brennan had cut up her original letter, he could tell from the blocky, childlike script. She had carefully excised the questions and glued them painstakingly one by one and answered each with a careful paragraph. Booth's heart swelled with love for her and something else…something strange…pity? It was just like her to be precise and to generously answer this unanswered letter, speaking to a little girl 20 years dead.

**1. Do you still have all your long hair? It took me forever to grow it out. If not, why?**

_I do not have my long hair. Bobby Bryson cut it off the day before graduation. I had been invited to a party and I stupidly thought my classmates would let bygones be bygones. I didn't realize at that moment no one would actually be interested in me; after the smurfette incident – a story for another time – I should have seen it coming when they handed me the drink. I woke up six hours later in a barn and my hair raggedly chopped to my ears. _

Booth wanted to scream and ask if she had reported the crime knowing all the while she never would have. He socked the arm of the chair instead in frustration and pity.

**2. Did you ever become a pilot? **

_No I did not. I discovered when I was sixteen that pilots, even shuttle pilots, had to work in close quarters with other people. I decided that my reticence and reservation around others would put my team members ill at ease. I opted instead for a career in Forensic Anthropology. The dead don't talk. _

Booth wanted to dig his fingers into the page and shake adult Brennan for such a cold and ruthless answer. He opted for squeezing the paper.

**3. Did Dad buy you a car for your sixteenth birthday?**

_I'm not sure how to phrase this for an eleven year old girl's understanding – exceptional as you/I may be. Dad and Mom…disappeared when I was fifteen. My sixteenth birthday passed invisibly; Russ left before it ever happened. I declined to mention it to anyone and as I became more isolated and more freakish in high school, I had no friends. I'm so very sorry to tell you this. No, I did not get a car. My first car was a 1989 Honda and I bought it myself after college. It cost $6000. I had never given away that much money in my life. _

Booth wanted to swallow past the lump in his throat. He clenched his teeth harder to overcome the impulse.

**4. Was Amy the maid of honor at your wedding?**

_I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Amy and I grew apart well before anything bad in my life ever happened. I was known as the Vulcan. She became, I believe the colloquialism is called "a slut." In about seventh grade, I found her kissing Garrett Dobbs. I know, shocking. _

Booth wanted to smile but found his cheeks hurt from the innocent question. He grimaced at Brennan's inevitable luck with friends.

**5. What did you name your kids?**

_I have never had children. I used to firmly believe I never wanted any, and then there was this radical swing to the other side of the faction where I decided I wanted a child without the traditional methods of a family. I was going to inseminate myself using my partner as a donor; it fell through when he was shot. He's better now. __If I had to name my children, I'd most likely name a little girl after my mother as Christine. It could also be her middle name as I'm flexible. As for a boy, I've never considered seriously what I would name my own children, but I would let my husband or partner pick it. Or I'd research names, popularity trends and biases on the internet (a fascinating invention similar to an international phonebook on computers which now are small enough to fit on someone's lap) in order to better understand with what I may be inflicting my offspring._

Booth wanted to frown but her answer was so sweet and endearing. He sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes.

**6. What's your husband like?**

_I'm not married, despite your belief that I am more than old enough to have been married and had children. I'm sorry that you grew into the kind of girl no one would marry. I didn't mean for that to happen. Mom was wrong when she said that boys would learn to see past your geekiness. However, I do have a work partner who sometimes acts like my husband. We often bicker and he helps me out in what I consider domestic mannerisms such as cooking, paper filing and fixing household amenities that I would rather call a professional but sacrifice for his pride. As for his looks he is a typical "fairytale" as you would imagine. He is tall, dark and very handsome with broad shoulders, reddish brown hair and big dark eyes that beg you for chocolate. But if you ever tell him that, I will spank you._

Booth wanted to scream in frustration. He laughed instead; laughed until he dropped the letter and had to scoop it quickly back up.

**7. What does Russ do? Do you live together like we do now?**

_Russ…he does odd jobs. He sometimes works as a mechanic. He didn't become an athlete like he wanted. He also didn't join the Air Force like Dad wanted. He ran away from home when he was 19. I'm sorry. We've only just recently begun to be reacquainted. I'm glad though that you don't know this yet. _

Booth wanted to hug her, both the older Brennan and the little girl. He wrapped an arm around his own waist to compensate.

**8. Do you live with Mom? You have to take care of her, you know. Dad said so.**

_I'm not very good with children, and I've decided the best policy is to be forthright, so forgive me for shocking you and being blunt. But Mom is dead. I'm not sure where Dad is half of the time. I grew up…we grew up…somewhere cold. We were strangers and I know now I may always be a stranger._

Booth wanted to cry. He shuddered instead.

**9. Are you rich and famous? Did you get rich singing?**

_I am both rich and famous, to your evident delight I am sure. But no, I never quite mastered "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" despite what Mom said. I am a murder mystery novelist, quite well known, but mostly for parts that a little girl like yourself should not know about, despite your evident knowledge of biology. _

Booth wanted to smile. He settled for smirking.

**10. If you met yourself on the street, would you like yourself?**

_I almost smiled at this question if it hadn't posed such a frustrating and convoluted answer. I remember Mrs. Gelsimino made us write this as the tenth question. I'm pretty sure I remember wanting to ask if I ever had a horse. The answer to that question is no, I have never owned a horse. _

_As for liking myself I'm startled to say I would probably intensely dislike myself. I am arrogant, conceited and aloof. I refuse to listen or cooperate with others. I have closed myself off from relationships. I have no family. I have just slammed the door on the chance of a lifetime with my partner and left him crying on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, a haunting memory that will forever be etched into my mind. I write this, weeping, in a field tent, abroad in the Maluku islands and being eaten voraciously by mosquitos. No. I would not like myself. I would hate myself. _

_I'm sorry you became me. _

_And I'm glad that you – this you preserved in the pages of a 20 year old letter – will always be untouched by time, forever happy. _

Booth wanted to retch from the weak bile that was worming inside of him at her blatant omissions and her mind numbing guilt. He continued reading as an alternative.

_As for the me who is reading this – if I ever am – my name is Dr. Temperance Brennan. I am 31. I no longer have long hair, I am not a pilot, my father never bought me a car, I've never been married nor had children, and until this year I can say I've never been in love._

Booth's chest seized up until he was actually gasping for air. His mind was registering his loud whining pants as he exhaled with little sung breaths: _hnnn, hnnn, hnnn_. He put both hands to his head, holding it, rubbing his fingers over his overly product laden hair – the guilt of being a barber's son.

There was still a little more left to read. Booth wasn't sure how he made his eyes work or force the blood from his optic nerve but he managed somehow to catch the last drops of this bitter but also beautiful Brennan, aching and torn, regretful and yet transformed through redemption.

_I know who wrote the letter from before. She is that part of me, always missing from my emotions. From the best days of my life when I linger, wondering for moments if I'm actually feeling happiness. She is also missing when I lie awake in bed with a man, wondering why I am never fulfilled. She is notably absent when I stop and obligingly buy lemonade from a child's stand. I know she should have done things like that; she used to build rockets and combustible engines for fun. She tried selling tiny explosives out of milk cartons before her father figured out her franchise and hurried her from the caul-de-sac, carefully ensuring none of the neighbors had seen. _

_ She was who I was, once upon a time. She was who I warned Elise about. She was the girl before I was Temperance. The girl before life happened. _

_The girl who used to be me. _

_Her name was Joy. _

Booth's spirit became as crushed as his lungs.


	15. She'll Fall Down

**I'm aware this is late. Easter. Work. Here's extra longness in an apology. Love everyone. Review and blah. **

* * *

"Booth," she whispered. He frowned at her over his cherry pie, fork dripping with a succulent bite. She had the menu up next to her face and was leaning across the table in the diner, away from Sweets.

"What is it Bones?" he whispered sarcastically right back, as if Sweets couldn't hear every word. He was, after all, two feet from them.

"Are you okay?" she asked, and her whisper broke with a threaded whine of concern.

"What?"

"You say you always know what's going on with me," she quoted and he crinkled his nose, his words sounding strange coming from her perfect grammar and her perfect mouth.

"So?"

"So I know when you're upset," she stressed, forgetting to whisper. Booth was _this_ close from pulling out his gun and shooting that interested look right out of Sweets' eyes.

"I'm fine," he grumbled and slumped back, letting his fork clang down, that succulent bite now oozing between the tongs, ruined by his hesitation.

"You're not fine," Sweets corroborated. "You haven't been sleeping well Agent Booth you're even more testy –" Sweets gulped when Booth leaned six inches from the kid's face, weight on his elbows. "-than usual," he finished in a strangled sort of tone.

"Is it something I did?" Brennan asked in a hurt voice, pretense of a secret forgotten, but still holding the menu stupidly against her face. Booth scrubbed a hand against his unshaven cheek. Nothing about her was stupid.

"No," Booth barked. Her face looked so crushed he prevaricated. "Yes! I mean –I don't know!" he ground out. He couldn't decide what to say. He wished he hadn't said anything when he saw Sweets leap on the tidbit of information. He was saved from mortification by his phone ringing.

"Booth," he spat. His tongue tasted like cherries. He wondered briefly in the space of indrawn breath on the other end of the line what Brennan's tongue tasted like.

He wanted to die. Ever since reading that letter to her younger self, about being in love…Booth's fantasies had stepped up to a nearly constant irritation. His surliness was mostly out of embarrassment at being unable to take his mind off of her. He was worse than a teenager. That was saying a lot, given his horny past as a teenager.

"Booth, it's Angela," said the voice on the other end of the line. Angela's voice was sultry and teasing.

"What?" he spat again. He could _feel_ her flinch over the static.

"What's got your goat?" she griped.

"Nothing," he sighed.

"Well what is _wrong_ with you?" Angela snapped but then softened. "You have good friends Booth. We've noticed, we've just been giving you space."

"Well great," snarled Booth, nevertheless touched at her sincerity and his friend's respectful distance, waiting for him to bridge the gap. He still felt like a cagey tiger, being gawked at by spectators which only fueled his temper. "Give me a little more okay?"

"Okay," she said dubiously, and he felt bad for growling at her.

"Look, Ange," and he saw both Sweets and Brennan, who had been attempting a terribly obvious eye conversation given Brennan's obliviousness, lean forward, seemingly surprised at the caller. "I'm sorry I snapped at you. I'm just tired."

"And I'm just fat," she chirruped cheerfully, "and not pregnant. Save the lies." She laughed and then sighed. "Can you put Brennan on the phone?"

"What? Why?" Booth was immediately on guard. His table looked concerned. He flapped a hand at them to calm them. Brennan grabbed it and he shook her off, but he knew by her face she had seen his fingers shake, felt them trembling beneath hers.

"No reason," Angela said suspiciously. "I just wanted to ask her about the measurements about the box. I was hoping she could help me out."

"NO!" Booth bellowed, shoving his chair back with his knees and bounding to his feet. He bolted toward the door, talking fast. "You can't bring Brennan in on this one Angela."

"Why not?" she was even more suspicious than before.

"I lied," his voice cracked. "It's not Rebecca's, it's Bones.'"

"Seriously?" Her voice shot up an octave.

"I _accidentally_ broke it," he shot back. He realized Sweets was fumbling to pay for their table and Brennan was sprinting around patrons, thinking there was an emergency. His heart cracked with his voice. "Please Angela. Please don't tell her." He realized he sounded like he was about to cry. He wondered if he was.

"Booth," Angela said softly. "Are you okay?"

"Promise me," he said raggedly.

"Yeah, no problem." She hung up with a click as Brennan hung a left and veered towards the ground. He shot out his arm and she grabbed it for support, tipping precariously in her heeled boots. He heaved and felt his biceps ripple under his suit jacket as he pulled her back up.

"Ok," she panted. "Let's go. What's up? Did Cam get the lab results?"

"What?" Booth asked blankly and then shook the empty look from his eyes. "Oh. No. I…um…Parker wanted to use the power tools." It was the lamest lie in the world and bless her she swallowed it hook, line and sinker. He felt like he was lying to an angel, too trusting to be suspicious.

"Oh," her face was wreathed in a gentle smile as she mockingly bumped her hip against his. He almost busted something. "That would be bad, right?" He gave her a ghost of a smile.

"Right."

"What's happening?" Sweets panted, catching up to their group.

"Parker was playing with power tools," Brennan informed him. Booth nodded, his brain elsewhere.

"Seriously." It wasn't even a question and Sweets' eyes were half lidded with heavy skepticism.

"Seriously," Brennan nodded. She threaded her arm through Booth's and he righted himself to the correct angle automatically.

"Back to the lab?" he asked her. She suddenly stared at his face with impossibly blue eyes.

"Sure," she said falteringly.

"Can I come?" Sweets asked hopefully. Booth moved away.

"No," he said shortly.

"Aw, come on!" Sweets shrieked. "I picked up the check!" He threw his hands in the air in defeat as the two moved away.

* * *

The car ride was thick with tension.

"Booth…"

"Bones. Just stop. Stop right there." He gripped his hands on the wheel and gritted his jaw as they muscled their way past Arlington National Cemetery.

"You're upset." She said it in the matter of fact way that she declared a body was murdered. He hated when she did that.

"I'm not upset."

"Now you're lying," she said in the same bland tone, flexing her beautiful jawline at the windshield.

"Just stop," he ground out.

"Why?" she asked blandly. "Because you don't like it when I'm right?"

"You're always right," he grumbled.

"Then working with the thesis I'm always right, would you like me to continue my hypothesis of why you're upset?"

"No."

"That's good," she sighed and then glared out from under a sideways lashed glance. "Because I have no idea. Booth, we _caught _the bad guy. My ankle is _fine_. You're having nightmares but there's nothing to upset. _What is wrong?_"

"Nothing!" bellowed Booth.

"Partners share," she snapped. "You told me that once, a long time ago."

"We were different people then," he yelled back.

"And we're different people _now_." She was right, damn it.

"I don't want to talk about it," he grumbled.

"You never want to talk about it."

"Well now I really mean it. It's just…something I have to work out for myself." Brennan grew very quiet and Booth knew he was playing on her weakness again.

"Are you being serious, Booth? Because you know I'm not very good at guessing when I'm supposed to push you as a partner or when I'm…" To his surprise her voice grew thick and garbled. He glanced over, panicked.

"Bones?" he asked, his own voice high in response to her low confession.

"I know I'm not good for you. I'm not what you want."

"_What?_" He couldn't think of anything farther from the truth.

"You are a heart person Booth. You are always guessing – sometimes even correctly – what people feel. You always _understand_ and can fix these things. But I'm not like that. And when you're upset I can feel the metaphorical inequality in our relationship more heavily. I'm not there for you in that way. I don't know if I can ever be there for you in that way. I never know the right thing to say. I don't even usually understand why you react certain ways to certain situations. I'm hopeless at this kind of thing, and your ongoing weeks of mental anguish are very…difficult…for me to process mostly because I cannot _figure it out_. That _never _happens to me! Booth! I…" she trailed off and Booth, who had been listening out of one ear as he searched for a place to pull the car over, felt even worse for his constant deceit. He felt like the metaphorical Eve in what used to be a paradise of a relationship.

He parked the car in a two-hour zone but didn't turn off the ignition or pay the meter. He just glanced over at her and yanked the sunglasses from his face as they idled.

"I…" he began, gazing at the tattoos on one of his wrists as he twirled his sunglasses in a lazy loop from one arm of them. He looked straight at her, ready to confess. "I…did something bad."

"Well," she said somewhat impatiently. "What did you do?" He gave her a rueful smile in place of a real answer, knowing beyond a doubt he couldn't tell her.

"It's more complicated than that Bones."

"Did you physically hurt anyone?"

"No."

"Emotionally?"

"Not yet," he sighed gustily. Brennan seemed nonplussed.

"Then I don't see what is wrong." Her eyes kindled again. "Oh! Did you break a governmental law?"

"NO!" Booth glowered at her.

"A religious transgression?"

"Not…exactly."

"So it's a religious problem?"

"No."

"And it has nothing to do with being in some sort of physical trouble."

"No of course not."

"It's nothing to do with being a sniper?"

"No! I'm fine with that."

"Is someone mad at you?"

"No," winced Booth. If Brennan had been more perceptive she might have tracked down that tidbit but she took it as fact and blithely steamrolled on.

"Well then Booth, that basically covers all the options I can currently perceive. Who then, are you hurting?"

He said nothing but her mind caught up nonetheless. Her face then crumpled the tiniest bit; he had to wonder if he was actually making her human.

"You're hurting yourself? A moral dilemma?"

"Something like that."

"So you were being honest when you said you needed to figure it out yourself?"

"Yeah…I guess so."

"Do you want to tell me and get a second opinion?"

"No." He said it too quickly, even for her ears. She stared at him appraisingly for a very long minute before she said in a chillier tone:

"Does it have to do with your feelings towards me?"

"Maybe," he admitted. She looked quickly down at her hands and picked at a cuticle, suddenly silent.

"Oh," she said very quietly, in a voice smaller than a whisper.

"Not like that," he hastened to assure her. "It's not whether I like you or-"

"Ok Booth," she interrupted. She looked pained, even ill all of a sudden. "I would like to let you figure this one out. Please take me back to the lab."

"Okay," he said unhappily. He didn't want to leave it at that, but the alternative truth was worse. He knew now though, she'd be worrying, preoccupied and obsessing over it for weeks. Typical girl.

Booth gritted his teeth as he pulled back out into traffic, never feeling more like a little shit in all his life.

* * *

Booth let his hand flick the keys viciously. He had dropped Brennan off ten minutes before and then compulsively circled the parking lot, thinking of something better to do. It was only her voice inside his head warning him of the dangers of heating a parking lot with exhaust and an oversupply of lethal carbon monoxide that made him park against the wall. He turned on the overhead light and opened the glove compartment. A glock clattered to the floor. He impatiently stuffed it back after yanking out some documents.

His fingers flicked more impatiently through the stack than he would have thought possible. They were also shaking again. He tightened his grip on control and they thankfully stopped. Self control. That's all he really needed. Booth breathed. He was overreacting to all of these letters. He was acting foolishly.

At least that's what he told himself until he finally found the long manila envelope with his tax returns in it. Stuffed at the bottom was another letter. It had neat handwriting, which placed it as a later entry in her erratic diary. It too had the Jeffersonian logo in the corner.

Booth climbed clumsily out of the drivers seat into the passengers seat and forcefully wedged his head between the side of the chair and the side airbag. He let his long legs drape over the console and his feet in their mismatching socks lean up against the cool glass of the driver's side. It had always been one of his favorite positions ever since he was a kid. He arched his back a couple of times to get the kinks out of it and then sighed, opening the letter with a little flourish, patting the address over his heart to keep the envelope from slipping. It simply read: _Letter to a Cynic_.

Interesting.

_October 23__rd__ 2007_

Booth began to chuckle. He knew where this was heading only because of the date. Oh she _didn't._ Bones.

_In regard to Dr. Lance Sweets,_

Oh but she had. He knew that first rocky meeting with Sweets had gone terribly, but he had never realized how rankled she had been. He felt his face slowly grin. He knew what this was. This was the rough draft of the talking down she had slammed Sweets with in his defense. She had lashed out: "You don't know Booth, you don't know _me_! You have a limited view of us based on superficial data you've accumulated on a standardized questionnaire and a subjective analysis from talking to us that is not at all scientific. So BACK OFF," Sweets had squirmed.

"Just trying to help."

And Brennan, tigress she was went for the kill: "By what? Questioning his _humanity_?" And Booth had finally stepped in. He had informed her she was going just the teensiest bit overboard and the worst thing that had probably ever happened to the poor kid was losing in mortal combat – the game that was. Or else he would be…well…dead. Booth scrubbed a hand over his face grumpily. He really needed to sleep.

He kept reading, wondering if her outburst had been more virulent than her written confession or the other way around. His eyebrows rose in surprise at the length of the letter and the tiny cramped handwriting. Evidently she had quite an opinion on psychology. Booth chuckled grimly as he shoved the first three fingers of his right hand stiffly through his hair to make it stand up some more.

_Dr. Sweets. This is an irrational letter written in anger. Actually quite a lot of these seem to be written in moments of great duress. I rarely find myself compelled to write one while happy. But I would like to clarify something. You don't know me. You don't know _anything. _And you especially don't know Booth. _

_I do._

Booth scoffed. Like Bones really knew him all that well. She didn't know his father's first name or how his mother had died. She didn't know if he and Jared had shared a bedroom growing up. She didn't even know why he had gotten his tattoos. He realized though, it was as Angela had said. He was a cagey tiger and she was giving him space. She had patiently waited for him to confide in her while he had been doing the same thing, waiting for her to confide in him. He realized the hopelessness of it all. They had both been too polite to push, which seemed an anathema in face of all the things they _did_ talk and bicker about.

Ok, so Bones knew him. A little.

_A lot_, his mind whispered. He frowned and rumpled his shoulders along with his hair some more.

_I'll bet the hardest thing you've ever had to do in your life is pick between your ties in the morning. _Booth wanted to laugh. Bones could be real saucy sometimes. But his heart squeezed cruelly when he caught himself grinning at someone else's pain. He remember something Gordon-Gordon said. Sweets had to bury his parents – all alone without siblings – at the ripe old age of 22. Pick through ties indeed. Did she not think that perhaps Sweets had also been picking ties to bury his father in?

Booth couldn't even imagine what he would have to do when Pops died, and he was close to 40, not so young as 22. That was his _grandfather_. He couldn't even think about his father. Sweets, the poor kid, had left his old city – Booth suspected – because he couldn't stand to grow up in a place that used to be home. He couldn't stand to be surrounded by the same people who instead of seeing him as a brilliant young psychologist (not that Booth would ever, ever say that aloud) would only see him forever as the tragic orphan. He must have sold his childhood home, by himself, and gotten ripped off in the process not knowing better. He probably said goodbye to all his friends to move alone to a city where everyone had been cruel and mocking, Booth included. Booth cursed. He hated knowing the whole story sometimes. Life was easier when everything was just black and white. Annoying kid and hot partner. Not a broken kid and a ripped up young girl.

Yet Brennan continued, unrelenting.

_Once I was in a house – this is a story I would never be able to tell you in person - nor anyone else. Yes, you are correct in your guess that it is about a foster home. The mother was abusive. It wasn't that unusual for the fathers to be violent, many foster parents have tragic pasts. I think it's why they want more broken kids, to find someone like them. But I could be completely wrong. I'm not very intuitive._

Booth had to reflect that her realization was pretty damn intuitive.

_But in this home the mother was brutal and enjoyed backhanding her daughters. They wanted so desperately to please her; it was one of the only homes where I felt lucky to be a foster kid. I could leave, if I so chose. _

_ The girl was sixteen and I was seventeen. She had been trying to explain to her mother why she needed to get her prescription refilled. Her mother, who, excuse my language, was very stupid, did not comprehend medication and mostly left her children to their own devices. _

_ Suddenly, the mother lost it. I don't remember why. It never really mattered. Sometimes bickering with Booth is like that. It doesn't matter what we're talking about; he just suddenly gets angry._ Booth swallowed. He had never wanted to be like his father in that respect. The story here was all too familiar.

_The daughter's name was Hannah. Her parents – before the loss of their eldest son – had named her because she was a miracle; she was slated to be diagnosed with downs syndrome and instead was born with a normal intellectual capacity. She was delivered, as the Bible so bespake, "by the grace of God," and that is the story in which her name alluded. _

_ The mother's name was Rachel. I hate that name to this day, irrational as it is. The woman backhanded her daughter so hard Hannah spun and hit the knob of a drawer just below her ear, her brain literally rattling in its skull. She immediately dropped to the floor as Rachel, the mother, stalked out. _

_ The part of the story you are not prepared for is when I felt Hannah kick my leg. I understand that abuse is very common. One in five boys are abused. One in four girls are. I am not special, nor was Hannah. _

Booth hurt inside. Brennan's bland belief in her achingly tragic past as normal made him feel desperately, excruciatingly lonely.

_I turned around to gripe at her – she was usually nice to me but hit me at times when her mother was cruel to her – and I froze. Hannah was on her back and her feet were kicking. So were her arms. Her head kept hitting the linoleum the same way a cantaloupe might have sounded. _

_It wasn't one of those times where I couldn't comprehend what was happening. I knew exactly what had happened: the fall had triggered a seizure. _

_ I wasn't an imbecile. I knew biologically what was occurring. What I should do. I flipped her on her side, hoping that her limbs would stop shuddering convulsively. Instead she looked akin to a stiff legged goat as she thrashed, her mouth foaming with extra saliva. _

_ I tried to talk to her. I asked if she was sentient. She didn't look sentient. I still stayed with her. I still stroked her hair. I still felt under her nose for breath. I still put a wooden spoon in her mouth so she wouldn't bite her tongue or break her teeth on a metal one._

_ I wanted to run and get her father. To get her sister. To get _anyone _but me. But I couldn't leave her. So I held her shoulders and my tongue. I talked to her. I tried to hold her limbs still. _

_ Have you, Dr. Sweets, ever tried to keep a seizing patient from seizing? _

_ I didn't cry, if that's what you're expecting. _

Booth knew Brennan wouldn't, but he knew he felt like it. His chest was thick with unshed tears, his own marred past coming up to rear its ugly head. How easily it could have been Jared, just a boy, seizing in his own arms. Just like Brennan. Just like this. Booth imagined it so vividly that he had to shake himself viscerally before realizing the memory he had just constructed, one that was flashing cruelly before his eyes, out of the corners of his brain, was never even real.

_When she stopped seizing, she was pale. So pale I suspected blood loss. But that wasn't what frightened me. It was her face. She was completely vacant, eyes rolling in different directions like she had forgotten how to control them. I whispered, very softly, if she wanted to sit up. I didn't expect her to comply. She didn't look as if she could comprehend colors, much less sounds. To my instant surprise she sprung up like a marionette, her limbs still trembling and flopping about with utter disregard. _

_ I offered to help her up but she managed somehow, in the space of a second, her face still drooling all down her front, mouth lolling as the spoon clattered to the floor with her abrupt ascension. She headed forward at a pace akin to a speed walker and promptly, full force, ran into the refridgerator, which knocked her to the floor. She lay stupidly, not even crying, nor touching her face, and stared at the ceiling. _

_ I now know that this stage is called__ the __postictal state. It__ is the altered state of consciousness that a person enters after experiencing a seizure. It usually lasts between 5 and 30 minutes, but sometimes longer in the case of larger or more severe seizures. Additionally, emergence from this period is often accompanied by amnesia or other memory defects. __However, when Hannah woke up not thirty minutes, but three hours later, from her heavy slumber with eyes wide open, she didn't remember a thing. She didn't even remember why I was there. Instead she gave me a black eye, certain I had given her the bruise on her cheekbone._

_ I left the home three days later. _

_ I have never been so hurt as by that punch and for once in my life I don't mean it literally. I am an author you know._

_ So don't sit there with your smug smile and tell me that I'm emotionally distant. Don't tell me Booth doesn't relate to me. We have more in common than that man could ever – will ever – know. _

_ How dare you be such a hypocrite. How can you say I don't feel? How can you threaten to reassign us without seeing who I am because of my life? It's not fair. And that's what I hate about psychology. _

_ You parade in on the current stage of life I'm in and judge me. You haven't seen were I've been. You don't understand every nuance of my personality. But then you have the gall to tell me how to live my life. To tell me what choices to make. You don't _know _me and frankly your attitude doesn't make me any more willing to share. _

_ You don't get to come into our lives and pick us apart at the seams just to see how the springs in our mind work. Forgive me, my metaphors are mixed. But you are purposefully winding Booth up just to see how he'll react. You're testing us and I hate it. _

_ So don't tell me I don't know my partner. That we are a threat to the FBI._

_ You are the threat. _

_Why? Because I have rarely ever felt so helpless as that day. I have rarely felt so scared. I have been held at gunpoint and knifepoint, bound and gagged, thrashed and beaten, almost raped and groped. But never have I felt so scared as watching that young girl on the floor, dying in my arms, not knowing if she'd ever stop. And you have never experienced anything close to that. So don't tell me you understand and then offer advice. Booth has been to WAR, which is most likely a thousand times worse than anything I have ever seen. _

_ There are many things in my life I wish I could change but Booth has never been one of them. So please, leave us alone. Despite what we said, we have so much more in common than coffee. _

_ So please, stop. _

_ Sincerely,_

_ Dr. Temperance Brennan_

* * *

Booth felt all choked up. He loosened his tie. The choked feeling didn't go away. Dear God Bones. She could scare him with words. Just words. No expression on her face. No groping gestures as she struggled to reconcile a girl's life. No withheld tears, too proud to be weak in front of him. This was the barest thread of the story, and it had him shaking, choked. Scared.

He put a shaking hand over his eyes and shuddered a little. It was just a parking garage.

Thrashing.

Little limbs against hardwood.

Those awful knobs his mother picked out.

The belt. The belt buckle.

Jared.

Little blonde head.

Vacant eyes.

Seizing.

Seizing.

Seizing.

Booth realized he was actually crying behind his hand. This had never even happened to him, but dear God it could have. It could have been Jared so easily. It could have been him, contemplating death. It could have been anyone.

He had watched Cam seize. He had been an idiot, his mouth hanging open as hers snapped shut. He hadn't moved to help. He hadn't…

The foam.

Her rolling eyes.

Her stiff legged goat seizure – just as Brennan had described it.

"Stop it," he whispered to himself. He slapped a hand to a temple as if squashing it like a pesky fly would take care of the problem. "Be quiet," he begged of it. He wiped a hand over his cheeks.

"It isn't real," he whispered sternly.

Parker on the ground.

Parker's vacant eyes.

Parker never waking up…

_"No_," he growled, digging nails into the sensitive flesh between his eyebrow and ear.

He thrashed his head from side to side like a child did when waking from a nightmare, trying to scrub the back of his brain in the crack between the cushion and the seatbelt holder.

He almost fell out of the car when the door was yanked open and his torso lolled out of the car comically as he quizzically frowned up at the person who had just opened it.

"Agent Booth." Gordon-Gordon looked silly in a chef's hat upside down, like a giant floating mushroom.


	16. She Wants To Be Found

**Hey guys. Several things. First: 2 words: Finals and moving. That's technically three words, but if you don't count the conjunction it's 2. Second: I got some sad emails asking where the story was. That prompted me to go into the rare but coveted AUTHOR FRENZY. That means I vow to make a covenant. Three chapters. Three days. BUT ONLY if you guys review more than normal. Better than normal. Yes? And I've got a question. There are those stories on ff that go on for like 100 chapters and then there are sequels. What do you guys think? 2 sequels, or 1 long story?**

**P.S. Super sorry to anyone who read this before editing. I accidentally posted the draft.**

* * *

"Wyatt!" Booth exclaimed, slowly sliding from the car to land heavily (and bruisingly) on his broad shoulders. "What are you doing here?"

Wyatt scratched an ear and seemed to realize in that instant he was still wearing his chef hat shaped like a mushroom. He yanked it quickly off, crunching it between his palms and shoving it into a side pocket on his windbreaker.

"Agent Booth," he said politely again. Or at least Booth suspected him of being polite. The British accent really scrambled things around. Wyatt helped pull him up under one arm. "I got a call from Dr. Brennan…"

"What?" he yelped. "What for? This is ridiculous! Bones! You're not even a psychologist anymore."

"I was never a psychologist," he corrected. "I was a psychiatrist."

"What's the difference?"

"Well among the differences in clientele…"

"Never mind," Booth fumed.

"Psychiatrists can prescribe medication for chemical imbalances in the brain," finished Wyatt quickly and somewhat wryly, seemingly irked by his cutoff.

"Oh great," fumed Booth, storming around the hood of his dark SUV to grab the keys from the ignition. "So now I deserve crazy people medicine. What did Bones say to you?"

Wyatt tilted his head to the right at an extreme degree. "Well Agent Booth," he began, holding up a sack.

"Why does she go to _you_?" Booth interrupted again, slamming the car door with more force than necessary and storming around the taillights. "I mean, sure I'm glad she didn't go to Sweets or else I'd have to _murder_ the kid, but hey, I mean, I'm fine. She doesn't need to bring in other people to our affairs."

"Your _affair_?" Wyatt snatched onto the syntax.

"Stop being shrinky," Booth snapped. "What, did you make me a sandwich full of Zoloft or something?" Booth fumed as Wyatt thrust the paper bag at him again.

"Actually Dr. Brennan just called for catering. She wanted to know if we delivered. We do not, but I decided I'd very much like a pleasant visit with old friends so I brought you dinner specially. On the house."

"Oh." Booth couldn't quite think what to say in response. The fire went out of him in a rush and he blinked foolishly in the sunset as they emerged up the stairs from the parking garage walking back to the lab.

"I was thinking we could all go eat in the park or something befitting the weather."

"On the mall?" Booth suggested. He shrugged defensively. "I don't even know if Brennan is still here."

"Yes," mused Wyatt, "and how long had you been sitting in the car?"

"You know what?" Booth ground out, "didn't you come to bring me a sandwich? Think you could leave your other job with your spaceship guitar?"

"Dr. Brennan was right," mused Wyatt. "You are awfully defensive."

"_Defensive_?" spluttered Booth. "Defensive? You should get a load of her! Jesus she's_ so_ paranoid! We go on one case out in the countryside and what do we get? A hospital and a sprained ankle and too many horses and too many….too much….!" Booth sputtered off, his brain stuck on _too many letters, too many secrets, too much pain._

"A hospital?" asked Dr. Wyatt in concern. His light tone wasn't fooling Booth at all. He knew Wyatt had taken in everything he had said and was forming his own conclusions. God, maybe Brennan was right. Psychology was overrated. Wyatt had _no idea _the kind of month he'd been having.

"Oh it's fine. Cam got stuck in a rockslide. Everything is fine."

"Is Dr. Saroyan all right?"

"Yeah, I just told you she's fine." Booth remarked again, frustrated. He shoved his fingers through his hair some more.

"And the sprained ankle?"

"Bones is fine."

"Oh it was _Brennan_ who was injured in the line of duty?"

"What?" growled Booth, distracted that Wyatt was chattering in his only window of peace with Bones; the few perfect seconds before she looked up.

"Dr. Wyatt!" Brennan exclaimed with actual pleasure, glancing up from her computer.

"Chef if you please," he corrected mildly.

"You ordered food?" Booth glared at her. What he meant was _from him?_ She missed his silent cues.

"Yes," she said obliviously. By Wyatt's under the breath humming, Booth knew he did not miss the inflection in the question. "Please," she gestured. "Sit."

"Gordon-Gordon here wanted to take a picnic."

"I'll get my coat," she smiled. Booth's irritation melted. That was his Bones, always ready for action.

"We'll all have to take separate cars unless you want me to drop you back off at the lab," he told her as she threaded the belt through the buckle.

"Well who's to say I can't drive you?" she teased. Booth squinted at her.

"Look, I rode a horse for you. I even fell off. Can we just stick to me driving please?" Brennan actually laughed, her face glowing. Booth wanted desperately to know what she was laughing at.

"You can drive me back then, I need to finish some work."

"_Bones_," he whined in his best Parker whine. She flashed him an empty smile this time instead picking her way over to Gordon-Gordon.

Booth felt his heart drop beneath his shoes as he stumped after them.

* * *

"Are you mad at me?" her voice was small but strong and straightforward like her gaze out the windshield.

"I'm not mad," he answered evenly.

"You don't sound happy," she noted.

"I'm not _mad_," he stressed. "But come on Bones, what'd you go and bring Wyatt into this for? I told you it's something I've got to work out on my own."

"I know but," she bit her lip. "You're making me nervous. And I'm impaired in this area of expertise. So I sought someone who was skilled in his respective field."

"Cooking?" Booth asked sardonically. She looked shocked that he couldn't figure out her intent.

"No Booth, your problems."

"I don't like it when you put it like that."

"You don't like what?"

"I don't know. You make me sound like I'm struggling with depression or something. Suicidal thoughts."

"I wouldn't know if you were!" she said in a high-pitched whimper. He wanted to hug her, to comfort her, tell her that would never happen. He laughed ironically instead.

"Oh you would Bones, you would."

"How?"

"You just would."

"Would you tell me?"

"I wouldn't need to!"

"Booth, I promise," she said solemnly. "I have no idea what people are thinking. Even in such extreme situations as the one you named."

"So why'd you call Gordon-Gordon?"

"Because I thought he could help."

"What am I supposed to say?" Brennan gave a tiny little smile.

"That's the beauty of it. You don't have to say anything."

* * *

"Anything," Wyatt pronounced. "Anything at all."

"I don't believe you," Booth laughed.

"Believe it," Wyatt frowned. "I can make you anything your heart desires out of any substance it desires it."

"A monkey made of chocolate?" suggested Booth, picking the first animal that came into his head.

"A fox of vegan banana bread?" asked Brennan.

"I will do my utmost," swore Wyatt.

"More wine?" Offered Booth. She held out her glass compliantly.

"Actually," she blushed. "I'm going to find a restroom. Will you still be here?"

"Always," Booth swore dramatically, clapping a hand to his heart. She stared at him a moment. "You're supposed to laugh," he said out of the corner of his mouth, cuing her. She reached out and brushed his hair down instead.

"Your hair was sticking up." He couldn't have imagined her fingers lingering by his temple as if almost to caress it. He wanted to close his eyes but was acutely aware of the third wheel.

"Thanks Bones."

"Always," she mimicked his pose, a hand clapped to her heart. He gave a forced laugh as she walked quickly away, eyes purposeful. If her walk had been just a tad bit faster he would have suspected her of leaving for a reason. But that would be just a touch too devious.

There was the tense breath that he held in his lungs before letting it noisily out. He squared his body to Wyatt.

"Okay. Let's do this thing."

"Do what?" Wyatt asked in bemusement.

"You'll want to talk to me now that Bones is gone. I can practically feel your eyes boring into my skull every time I look away. It's driving me bananas."

"Two monkey metaphors," mused Wyatt seemingly to himself.

"What?" Booth squinted at him.

"You want a monkey of chocolate and I'm driving you bananas."

"Yeah? So what?"

"So nothing, an amusing coincidence is all."

"Can you _please_ stop beating around the bush?"

"Is something on your mind Agent Booth?" Wyatt asked directly, his gaze wandering to trace the path of an air born leaf.

"No!" Booth barked. "Nothing! I'm fine."

"And yet Dr. Brennan feels the need to call in a 'catering order' is it?"

"I don't know _what_ Brennan feels."

"Is that what's bothering you? You could always just ask her. I'm sure she'd appreciate your forthrightness."

"No I _can't_ just ask her," Booth mimicked Wyatt's inflections.

"Why ever not?"

"She doesn't know what I know."

"And what is that?"

"Why are we talking about this?" Booth growled. "It's not important."

"It's important enough to drive you back into gambling," Wyatt said blithely.

"WHAT?" Booth bellowed loud enough for two different church kickball teams to turn around and stare at him.

"It was fairly easy to deduce," Wyatt shrugged. "Your constant agitation, your on edge airs, your skulking alone. You didn't want to leave the lab and you kept looking around as if needing a reason to stay. You fairly reek of anxiety, guilt and self-loathing."

"No," Booth was already shaking his head halfway through Wyatt's quiet deduction. "No, no, no. It's not what you think."

"Well now you know what I think."

"Well it's not that. I went through the program."

"Yes, I saw on your file."

"You reread my file?"

"I seem to be gifted with an exceptional memory Agent Booth. For example, did you know that I recall when I was eight my teacher used me as a record keeper since I-"

"That's fine but I'm not _gambling_." Booth's voice dropped on the last word.

"Yet you are clearly suffering from some kind of addiction. I never pegged you as the sort of man to get into drugs."

"No!" Booth exclaimed, still whispering and looking around conspiratorially. "Of course not."

"What then are you doing?"

"Nothing!" insisted Booth. Wyatt's face changed to a knowing smile of amusement.

"Oh please Agent Booth. I may not be a psychiatrist now, but for many years I was trained in the art of detection and lying. And I wouldn't need a single hour's worth to tell that you're lying now."

"Well I can't tell you," Booth huffed grumpily, his spirits already sinking knowing he would have to.

"Well you can attempt to tell Dr. Brennan."

"It's about her," Booth blurted.

"I suspected as much."

"What? Why?"

"Only two things on earth have these affects on men; our vices and women." Booth ground his jaw together from coming up with the response he would have liked.

"I…I read her diary." Wyatt's face, previously so understanding, went slack with shock and something akin to horror. Regardless of how understanding he had been prepared to be about Booth's apparent relapse into compulsive betting, his absolute disgust made Booth feel lower than low.

"Agent Booth!" It was all Wyatt could manage.

"I know."

"I…" stuttered Wyatt.

"I know."

"But...you…"

"I couldn't stop," admitted Booth shamefacedly. His conscience forced him to continue. "I still can't."

"But…"

"I know."

"You…"

"Just stop already!" Booth clapped both hands to his temples and let out a huge breath. "I know! I know I'm a terrible person! I know I'm the worst scum on the planet. But I can't _stop!_ I want to know her; I get to know her. I get to know every part of her. And I thought I knew….but I didn't…and….I thought….but….and I can't!"

"And now you feel supremely guilty." Somehow Wyatt seemed to have regained cognitive development.

"Well…yeah." Booth basically summed it up.

"Agent Booth," frowned Wyatt once more.

"I know," Booth said tiredly.

"What are you going to do?"

"When?"

"When she finds out?"

"Who said she's going to find out?" Wyatt's face took on that painfully tolerant amusement again.

"Agent Booth, please. They always find out."

"You said _they_," Booth jumped with hope on his words. "You've done this before?"

"To my older sister," Wyatt confirmed. "When I was eleven." Booth's hopes plummeted. It was far different to be an obnoxious young sibling than a fully grown, fully rational adult.

"What did you do?" Booth asked fervently.

"Do about what?" asked Brennan, smiling, walking up at the exact wrong moment.

"Bones!" Booth exclaimed. She knelt down and slicked his hair down again.

"You've really got to stop that," she sighed.

* * *

"Do you want me to stay?" he asked for the thousandth time as he walked her back into the lab. He nodded to the night guard.

"It's fine Booth," she assured him. "I can handle this."

"Look," Booth said. "I can go to my office and pick up some papers. We can study together. Like college kids." She raised an eyebrow pointedly.

"I hardly doubt _you _ever studied." Booth gave a wry grin and scratched his cheek.

"Well I did have this one tutor," he acknowledged. He circled his hip with a hand gesture. "And she had this tattoo…"

"Booth," Brennan rolled her eyes and threw a pillow at him as he closed the door to her office.

An hour later Booth sat down at Hodgins' workplace. It was a few hundred feet from Brennan's door; he wouldn't crowd her. Not with another of her letters in his hands. He quickly spread out some papers to make it look like he was reviewing case files – something he really should have been doing anyway – and unfolded the letter. It was titled: _Letter to a Friend_

_May 20th, 2010_

_Dearest Hodgins,_

Booth had to wonder at the appellation. He knew, with that horrible sinking feeling that comes with topping the roller coaster, what this letter was addressing. The date was what surprised him.

He had to wonder though, why she had never brought it up in conversation. It had clearly impacted her – as it had him – and although she had written previous letters about the incident, she had never mentioned it to him.

_I still have nightmares. _

She had admitted that much to him.

_I'm locked in a car, locked in by people who aren't my parents for water too hot and soap too slippery, but suddenly the car is underground. You're with me, and we're terrified, and somewhere in my dream, I realized with some sort of horror that it is reality. The only equivalent feeling is it's the kind of horror I experience when I go to the movies – a rare occurrence at best – and I see a grotesque film in which I realize, halfway through the film, that I have lived these scenarios. Movies about genocide and child rape. Movies about broken homes and parents dying. Movies about slashing fountains of blood and corpses left out on display. Movies about war. Movies about grief. Movies about hate. _

_The gravedigger nightmares are something like that. _

_Convicting Heather Taffet did not cause them to cease. They intensified afterwards, her face in the courtroom, her hands with their perfect nails as she tapped the witness stand. They were all I could stare at. Shouldn't they have dirt under them? That's all I could wonder. It's miraculous she didn't walk free just because of my preoccupation. _

_Sweets would say it was because I was marginalizing stronger feelings of terror and loathing by focusing in on the minute details; he informs me consistently that I tend to do that. I find his self assurance a little cloying. _

Booth found that statement riddled with irony.

_The gravedigger is only partially what I wish to talk to you about – a misleading statement given that I'm penning this letter and in all probability it will never reach you. I seem to write a lot of these; I'm clumsy with words. My books tend to write themselves, their characters rife with plotlines all set up for my fingers to find. In reality, my interactions, I've noticed, would be a lot easier if…if I could just _get it. Understand. _Belong. _

Booth's heart contracted painfully, the blood sloshing in and out too fast for him to recognize. Why did she do this to him? Wound him? He had to remind himself she would never have agreed to let him read this. It only intensified the feeling of his heart squeezing in on itself, much too small. Was it shame? Guilt? Self loathing? Or was it pity, as if his heart could curl in on itself and teleport into hers, fill it in all the broken spaces, all the holes where he could prop up those crumbling walls that guarded her.

_When we departed, not several hours ago, as I write this in first class on my flight to the Maluku Islands, I find myself absently stroking the St. Christopher's medal that Booth gave to me. I find myself flipping through your carefully made book. I find myself reminiscing on my blurted 'I love you too.' _

_What I had said was true, Booth often throws information my way when he suspects I am not listening. I just don't give him the pleasure of rising to his lure. _

_Rising to the bait_, Booth wanted to fume, correcting her even here, jabbing a finger to the page, _it's rising to the _bait_ Bones. _

_Booth did inform me that overly helpful advice connotes love. But please believe no one was more surprised at my words than I. I knew I was fond of you, value you highly as a colleague for your expertise in entomology, botany, and mineralogy , but I hadn't realized I loved you until everyone was leaving. I was leaving. _

_Booth told me once, long ago, on the day Zack finished his doctoral dissertations and had them approved, that there was 'more than one kind of family Bones.' He's also told me, when I despaired of ever having a regular family, that I can choose the people I love. And he informed me most recently when my cousin Margaret was in town that friends are the family that 'doesn't get under your skin.' Although I am not sure where that man garners his wisdom, he seems to have quite a lot of it. _

_I wanted to apologize for my putting any obligation on you to care for me._

Booth wanted to smack his hand to his face; it was too clichéd, even for him. He studiously scrutinized his own fingernails instead, irritated that Brennan still felt the need to apologize, years of foster care drilled into her, that human emotion was wrong.

_It's not that I doubt your sincerity - this carefully laminated book in front of me says clearly otherwise, as does your devotion to Angela - but rather because I am not someone you should want in your family. Despite my affection for you, my capacity for emotion is small, as is my understanding. I do not have a big heart like Booth professes, or your heart, where Angela explains you pretend to be gruff. I am simply what I am. I am not loving. I am not affectionate. I am awkward and cold. _

Booth swallowed down his pity and his distrust, and wished he could kiss that fear, that self doubt, right out of Brennan until her heart exploded with love. Love for him, for herself, and for anyone else she had included in her family.

_You should not expect so much from me. Gifts show a pattern of obligation as evidenced by years of anthropology. I am not a gift giver. I am not generous nor do I often correctly reciprocate actions. _

Booth felt his eyebrows go way up into his head, until he could almost feel them disappear into the crinkles of his skin. Brennan, not generous? She was one of the most deeply caring and generous people he knew. She showed it differently, granted, and she didn't pick up on the signs or cues, but when she was presented with an opportunity, such as saving Wendell Bray's scholarship, or telling Cam to adopt Michelle, or sharing her personal life with Sweets so he didn't feel like he was the only one with scars on his back…that was…love. Loving. A big heart.

_Yes, I understand we survived a trauma together. An ordeal. It will haunt me for the rest of my life. It was horrible and surreal but we survived. We lived. We took a chance and we made it. _

_And we convicted her. We may not have been able to get justice for ourselves, but we did for that first little boy. _

Booth had to reflect on the irony of that statement; cosmic justice, even misguided justice, would visit the gravedigger a little more than 18 months after this letter was written.

_You have a deep capacity for emotion and I am shallow. You have no doubt experienced life, and love. I am sheltered. I need you to understand._

_You are an amazing friend, an incredible coworker, and make Angela so happy. I am none of those things. Please believe me though, when I say this. You __must__ understand me: I swear I will love you as best as I can._

_To the best of my limited capacity. _

_I will try. I owe you more than this, but unfortunately this is all I can give._

_Faithfully yours,_

_Brennan_

Booth felt his fingers itch, longing to touch her face.

"Hey Brennan?" She stuck her head out of her office, bewildered that he had called her by her given name instead of her monicker. He stood up and wrapped his arms around her as tightly as he could.

"I love you," he whispered. Or that's what he wished could have happened. Instead, he squeezed until she let out a huff of the last lungful of air before he let her go. She gasped in a breath and straightened her jacket, frowning quizzically.

"What was that for?"

"I just really needed that," he answered. What he really meant was: _I just really needed you to feel that_.

"You are so strange," she said bemusedly, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. He shrugged helplessly.

"Want to go home?" he asked. She sighed and looked up at him.

"Yes."


	17. The Only Way Out Is Through Everything

Angela had drawn blood. Booth winced painfully as she retracted her claws – nails – after hauling him to her office. Little droplets of blood welled up in the cracks of what used to be unbroken skin on his forearm.

"If Brennan wasn't the best forensic anthropologist for like a bazillion miles, I'd murder you," she hissed under her breath as she flashed the letterbox up on her angelator.

"I'm _sorry_," Booth moaned pathetically. She flashed him a half glare and a half sultry exasperation under her lashes. She flicked her eyes back down to the remote, regret flickering across her features as he rubbed his arm.

"You should tell her."

"I can't."

"It's just a box Booth. I'm sure she'll understand." Booth raised his eyebrows. _Pretty sure she won't_, he said to himself. Out loud he snapped:

"This is between me and Bones, k? Can you just stay-"

"I know, I know," she grumbled. "Don't get between the dream team." Booth smiled a beautiful little grin he knew melted knees. Or at least that's what Cam used to tease him for.

"You think I'm dreamy?"

"Well you're ridiculously handsome and a bit vague so…sure, I guess," Angela smiled.

His eyes narrowed at the backhanded compliment.

"This is what it should have looked like before," Angela continued, zapping her magic buttons. He jumped excitedly when seeing the screen, bouncing on the balls of his feet to warm up as if preparing for a baseball game.

"That's it!"

"Well this is what I've got," she said absently as she went to retrieve the box from behind a filing cabinet.

"It looks amazing Angela," Booth said. "Really. It does."

"Yes I know," she frowned. "The only thing I can't figure out is the paper doesn't quite add up to the original. There's a certain percentage of square volume on the original that just, no matter how I angle it, can't fit over the new box."

"Well that's because it doesn't have the slit in the top," he said, nonplussed. Her eyebrows rose.

"Come again?"

"Yeah, it had a little strip missing, like a piggy bank."

"How long?" Angela said, quickly drawing up measurements. Booth squinted and held his hands apart to approximate letter length.

"About…this long?"

"Are you guessing?"

"Sort of."

"It doesn't matter. I can put in close ratios in the computer and it will tell me. Ok…just hold on…one minute…" fingers like lighting they flicked quickly over the keystrokes, each bleeping a tiny little beat of accomplishment. One step closer to the goal.

Booth compulsively looked over his shoulder every time he heard footsteps, even though he could tell without looking when Brennan was coming.

"Will you stop?" Angela asked in exasperation. "You're bending _me_ out of shape." Booth thought of a very off colored pun around the word _bent_ and Angela's sexual preferences. He kept it to himself.

"Sorry," he muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"Okay…the computer says the slit on the top was approximately 21.59 centimeters across."

"And in American?" More button clicking.

"Wow, exactly 8.5 inches." Angela mimicked his hands held apart. "So about the length of a letter."

"Funny coinkydink," Booth agreed. Angela put her hands on her hips, dropping her pose.

"So you going to tell me what you stole?"

"Stole?"

"From the box. Now that there's a slit in the top, it changes the whole dynamic. You're not just repairing a treasured momento. You're _hiding_ what you took."

"I didn't take anything," Booth said quickly.

"Riiight," she said slowly, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "What is it?"

"Nothing."

"No, seriously Booth."

"Seriously Booth what?" Hodgins echoed as he walked in. Booth crossed his arms even tighter across his chest in frustration as he puffed out breaths.

"Put it back," Angela frowned at him, flapping a hand at her husband as if to say 'forget it.' Booth hoped she wouldn't tell him later.

"So when will it be done?" Booth asked hopefully.

"Since there's a slit in the top…and I can figure out now the new measurements for the paper…I'd say I could have it done tonight."

"Really?" Booth asked in elation.

"No!" Hodgins growled. "You promised."

"Oh!" Angela turned pink. "I did. I'm sorry Booth but it's our anniversary."

"Seriously? He remembered and you didn't?" He chortled at the irony. It was cut off at Hodgins' serious expression.

"No, it's not our _wedding _anniversary," Angela said in a tone that made him feel like it should have been obvious. "It's our first date. We reenact it every year."

"Seriously?" Booth asked, blinking.

"Seriously dude," Hodgins answered. He folded his arms as if that could make them get to the swingset faster.

"Are you ready to go?" Angela smiled, suddenly shy.

"Sure," she giggled quietly. She turned quickly to Booth, her eyes flashing and her temper snapping back up.

"Fix this," she gestured at the box but Booth knew she meant the emotional reparations. "I'll fix this end. It'll be done in a few days. I have to look for some of the words and such in magazines or see if I can salvage them by cutting them off the original."

"Fine," Booth sighed.

"Tell Brennan to go _home_," Angela instructed severely. "She's been working too hard lately, which she only does when she's upset and don't tell me that this is a mess that _you_ have made."

"Um," Booth said brilliantly. Angela rolled her eyes and stomped out, leaving a frustrated and confused Hodgins to follow. Down the corridor, however, Booth saw Angela thread her hand through her husbands and tilt her tall head on his shoulder. He was amused to note both of her shoulders were peeling badly from the sunburn she had received in Kentucky.

"Bones!" Booth hollered. She didn't answer.

"BONES!" he bellowed, skipping from room to room. Several sleepy lab technicians gave him annoyed glances. The guards started. Booth ignored them all and strode into his partner's office. His face softened in a smile when he saw her fast asleep on the couch. He crept up next to her and blew childishly on her face.

"Stop it," she said clearly and Booth froze, distinctly remembering the exact scene in the trailer. This time her eyes opened and she bared her teeth at him in a sort of feral silent growl.

"I heard you," she griped. She struggled to sit up and he obligingly pulled on her arm. She winced in pain as he dug his hand into a particularly large black bruise. He was instantly contrite and pulled up her sleeve to check on the damage.

The swelling had gone down the bruising was still fierce. He stroked it softly with a thumb and looked back up into her face.

"I'm sorry," he said. She shrugged but then winced again, her back obviously sore.

"Want me to rub it?" he offered. She grimaced at him.

"I'm fine."

"Right," Booth hissed and backed off. "Working late?" he asked hopefully. She caught the thread in his tone and handed him the phone from her pocket.

"Speed dial three is Bangkok Bistro."

"And that's why I love you Bones," he muttered as he held it up to his ear.

He just managed to catch the tail end of one of her special smiles.

* * *

Booth cracked open a beer with the satisfying little click and hiss that came with opening an ice-cold beverage and let the cap clatter to the floor by his refrigerator. He swept the lid towards the trashcan with the toe of one outrageous sock.

He had already showered. He had already watched tv. He had already thought about gambling, just to round out his accused addiction.

He knew he was getting to it.

The letter drawer beckoned. On the right side were carefully read and just as carefully replaced letters. It was large. Thick even. There were fifteen of them. Fifteen moments of her life documented that he had never even caught a glimpse of in their six, almost seven, year partnership.

To his desperation only a few letters remained. He picked one up off the pile to the left. He counted. He counted again. Including the one in his hand, Brennan had only written six more letters. He had caught up to her life. Her entire life boiled down to a series of letters in his hands. He was frustrated. When would she write the next letter, the next chapter? How could he get his hands on it? How could he read it? Should he wait for years and read them all at once? Or periodically check her new letterbox? Maybe he should ask Angela to put in a secret door or something.

Panic settled in his stomach. What would he do when they finished? Booth wondered if he should pace himself. Read them over a course of weeks to make them last longer…he knew before he finished the thought it would never work. The new letterbox was almost done and he couldn't catch even half a dream without her familiar handwriting. He crawled grumpily into bed and shook open one of the last letters.

_Letter to a Teacher_

_August 20__th__, 2002_

Booth thought for a moment. So this letter was long before he had met Brennan. He had just seen Parker's first birthday before being deployed again. Brennan had been…24? Booth counted. If she was 27 when she first met him, then she was 24. She had graduated high school early and gone to college at 17. Three short years later she was getting a fellowship in graduate school ta Northwestern from ages 20-23. Then she had spent the year in India for 2 doctoral dissertations as he had learned that night with the Tequila…and she had joined the Jeffersonian team under Goodman at 24, working for 3 years on ancient remains before teaming up with him for the first time.

_Dear Mr. Meradin, or Caleb, depending on which you would prefer from me - _

_ Where to begin? You've known me practically my whole academic life. I wonder how it looked from your vantage point, seeing me every few semesters, watching me transition from embittered first year graduate student to my last year before beginning my thesis. _

_When I first met you I was young, hopeful and dazzled by your smile. You seemed big and imposing, with your perfectly trimmed hair and your three piece suits. I was naïve, and I blushed when you looked at me, fell silent when you spoke._

_ At the very end of my first year on St. Patrick's Day, when you turned over all the tables in the classroom in the science lounge and said that a leprechaun had done it, I almost believed it. I wasn't a child, or stupid, but the idea of you carefully unscrewing all the lids on all the minerals in the lab just for us to test each piece individually and sort them back into their containers seemed ludicrous. Ridiculous. No one like you would ever be so…destructive, or so…mischievous. It was the first time I caught a glimpse of who you were past the blinding glow of my imposed apotheosis. _

_ Again in my third year, working on my second doctoral candidacy before my theses, two years had gone by and I had hardly thought of you until you walked into my classroom and became my teacher once more. Our dynamic had changed. You were dating my lab partner. I knew it as well as anyone. I may be blind to social interaction, but her consistent bruising along her carotid artery and repetitive wardrobe suggested as much._

_ I was not jealous; I was glad to think you had found someone that would make you happy. I knew of your past of course, common gossip even to a social pariah such as myself. Your wife and two children killed in a car accident while you took a separate car to a movie in order to save you ten minutes of driving time to the university. People whispered that your constant philandering was your way of coping with grief. _

_ I was just too afraid you'd look closely at mine. _

Booth knew what Brennan was talking about; she had sucked him so quickly, so seamlessly into her diatribe that he had forgotten she wasn't actually talking to him, Booth. This seemed as easy and as remembered as one of her stories at the diner, sharing a plate of French fries. He also knew many soldiers who had fallen into the same destructive patterns as her professor; coming back from war everyone had changed. New supermarkets had gone up and old houses torn down. Life had gone on. No one was the same. Even themselves. They didn't fit into small town suburban life anymore; they had to drive in circles for hours just for something to do. Everyone had changed. Booth knew his soldiers were always griping that. No one could bring himself to admit it was he who had changed.

_ But then, in my last year, more tragedy struck. _

Booth didn't want to keep reading. How much tragedy could one person take? He was a sniper for God's sake. He quickly crossed himself as a penance for taking the Lord's name in vain. He swallowed.

Although_ you knew nothing of my rather discolored past – stained with the antiquities of someone else's flaws – you did know Sarah. _

Booth wanted to moan. As if her previous friendships hadn't already been a disaster…Her flaws and her inherent distrust of him made more sense now. It had started with abandonment of her parents, and then Russ, then the boy who had given her Brainy Smurf and the girl whose nose she broke in high school, her best friend freshman year and now…Booth scrubbed his eyes. It was as he had thought before; Brennan had a horrible sadistic sort of luck with friends.

_ She and I…we were inseparable. We were best friends, if such a moniker can be applied to our age. We were outcasts; I had no idea how to speak to my peers, and she was much too hot headed to hold a civilized conversation. I attribute much of the little of my social skills to her. _

That explained a lot.

_ I had just been left broken hearted by my previous best friend._

Booth remembered _that_ letter quite clearly.

_I had carefully guarded myself from her. I had just as carefully tailored my life around her. That was a mistake. With Sarah I was more careful. I was cautious. Yet my silence seemed to fascinate her. My tragic past became her sideshow. Her own past was just as damaged; it was a miracle she had come as far as she had. She wanted to be an engineer. I don't know if you remember that. It's one of the five things I do remember._

_1. She wanted to be an engineer, like her father._

_2. She loved Star Wars._

_3. Her favorite color was green._

_4. She had a pet chicken named George and a pet turtle named Herbert._

_5. She was an atheist._

Booth suspected why this list was here. The marrow of his bones was on fire the way it was right after his unit had come together for the first time after losing one of their own.

_One of her secrets was that she had taken some of her mother's old clothes from the back of her closet to college with her. They were horribly outdated, but Sarah used to try them on for me; her eyes would change then. They would grow far away as she stared into her vanity. She wanted so badly to be noticed in that family, with a father too wrapped up in himself, a sister too wrapped up in drugs and a mother too wrapped up in anxiety and grief. Sarah was a good girl. _

_It's what got her killed._

Booth gritted his teeth; why had so much death shadowed this child? This girl? This naïve and hopeful Temperance?

_You knew us as a team. We were always together. I was very shy: painfully so. I know that seems incomprehensible now. _

Booth snorted. He could hardly believe Brennan was ever shy or didn't have an opinion about _something._

People_ would always get us confused: Tempe and Sarah, or was it Sarah and Tempe? I can't figure out why they did; Sarah had thick blonde hair and grey eyes. We looked nothing alike. I can only assume my lack of a voice rendered me as her shadow._

_You know as well as I what happened. The girls' bathroom on the sixth floor is still rumored to be haunted by her ghost and the revolver is rumored to be hidden in the tiles behind that stall. _

_Ridiculous. _

Booth knew before he read the next line, what had occurred. His eyes slid shut but the words still danced before him long before he could bring himself to read the cold, bone chilling factual way she stated it.

_After Sarah killed herself, you became more watchful of me. I don't know why. Perhaps you were afraid that because I had no discernible father figure I may need one in a man half his age. I laugh at it now, but those ten years between us seemed an age at the time. I went to graduate school at 20 and you were 31. Sarah never quite made it to 20. _

_Do you remember my surprise when you became my graduate school professor? It wasn't until two years later I even realized you were interested in me._

Oh Bones. Booth knew now, who this letter was to. It made him squirm in his seat. She had told him she lost her virginity at 22 in a "skilled introduction." This was undoubtedly the man. The philandering, wifeless, watchful professor. Booth ground his teeth. He had basically stalked her for creep.

_I had thought you were a good mentor when you spoke to me, tolerated my jokes and didn't protest when I would stop by your cubicle three times a day, inventing reasons to speak to you. I craved your company. You were interesting and witty, intelligent and didn't laugh when I spoke. It was such a rare combination of qualities, I found myself becoming attracted to you in a way that I was never attracted to the athletes in my high school and undergraduate years. _

_When I lost my virginity to you as I began my thesis and changed professors, I never had the social grace to say the goodbye I would have liked. _

Booth felt an ugly monster rearing up inside of him, jealousy fanning its usual flames at the idea of anyone else touching his partner. He knew too, that he was not the least bit placated he had guessed correctly.

_You had done everything for me; I had given practically nothing to you. You babysat my late bloom into puberty, you were captivated by my idle chatter, you studiously frowned when I was tentative enough with my superficial problems, hoping against hope you would give me some idea of what to do about my lingering pain from my family and foster care. _

Brennan. Booth couldn't think beyond the thought, the jealousy curdling into something sharper, crueler: pain. Her pain. Dripping silently between the lines, curling in her sharp s and spiking through her slashed t.

_I will _never_ forget that day when I dropped in for the last time in your cubicle. _

"_I'm off," I had said cheerfully. _

"_Are you happy?" you asked. I tried to answer truthfully while still remaining the tactful distance required at school._

"_It's a good opportunity. Michael Stires is a well respected anthropologist and I know when I finish my dissertation you'll write me a good recommendation." You didn't say a word and I felt my heart thunder. I thought for sure you were going to refuse me. I had been joking, but only slightly. I had no other means of bringing up the proposal. _

_You just stared at my face as if you could take it off and handle it like a museum curator would a piece of pottery. You made me even more nervous when you unexpectedly dropped back into your chair and rifled through a folder. _

"_Look," you finally said, and held up a photograph. It was of me, sometime during my first year. I had forgotten I had ever taken it, much less how you had a copy of it._

"_How did-" I faltered._

"_It's from the yearbook," you interrupted. You always knew when I began to panic. You used to tease me about the wrinkles I'd get between my eyes._

Booth didn't like that anyone else had noticed his tell when Bones was getting antsy. It made it less special and cheapened his observations.

"_It didn't make the cut."_

"_Of course not," I said lightly. _

Booth grimaced; he had been all over the yearbook, the smug smiling frat boy with too much dope and too big of a dope to do anything but enlist. He had never considered what it had been like for those like Brennan who had withered in the party scene.

_Your smile grew to my confusion as you rested your hands behind your ears, your eyes devouring again. Of all the things I had expected you to say, you confounded the list. _

"_You are _so_ unhappy." You actually chuckled when you said that. You laughed wryly to my stupefied face as I tried to protest, claiming it was a good opportunity, that my family would be proud. _

"_So, so unhappy." You steamrolled my explanations. You never asked about my parents; I never volunteered. I still suspect you knew somehow._

Booth didn't doubt it. One look into those little girl eyes and he had known even without reading the final, that her family was a sensitive subject.

"_I'll be fine," I finally struggled to say. And you nodded and shrugged and flapped a hand at the entrance of the tiny cubicle. _

"_You always are," you threw out. I to this day don't understand the subtext of that conversation or what your eyes were saying, but I wanted to remedy it somehow. I wanted to write you this letter. I wanted to explain how I felt regardless of how you did. I may not feel this way in a year, or five years or ten. But right now, sitting on the steps of the Jeffersonian, my first day on the job after meeting my new boss Dr. Goodman, I desperately needed to tell you how much you impacted my life. I know beyond a doubt I would have never received this position without your letter of recommendation. So for whatever you said, I respond with a thank you. Just so you know how much you meant to me. _

_Thank you._

_You changed my life._

_Honestly yours,_

_Temperance Brennan_

Booth shifted uncomfortably in his bed. This letter was heartbreaking with Brennan's casual heartbreak. It was also horrifying with her casual relationship…or worse, a serious one, with her professor. Booth knew there was no sleeping now. He checked his watch. 11:30. Not too late. He turned on his phone and clicked on a contact.

"What." Her voice was not happy. "Talk to me Seeley." Booth gave a wry little smile, knowing she was only pretending to have been asleep. Only one person called him Seeley and got away with it.

"Hey," he said, "want to go drinking?"


	18. She's Running From

**I'm so ashamed! My internet was out all day and it's 12:04 am and I MEANT to get this done before 12 the following day. I have failed you dear readers, and for that I apologize. Will you review to tell me that it's okay and you still love me and my super author frenzy? As for the tally I have about an even number of people calling for a sequel and longer chapters. Cons for both: Sequel. Cons include loss of followers, dragging out plotlines and forgetting what's occurred previously. Long Story. Cons include a change of pace, a change of flavor (author style/character interactions etc), and also lots of rereading of previous chapters. So I've decided to hit up a sequel after the climax. I'll let you guess when that is.**

* * *

_"_You really need to stop showing up to therapy hungover," she informed him huffily, digging her elbow purposefully into his side. He grunted and shifted farther down on the couch. Sweets glared at him disapprovingly.

"Agent Booth. It's a weekday."

"It's a Friday," Booth corrected grumpily, wincing at Sweets' sharp tone. In addition to his lingering headache, his drunk sleep had promptly awoken him at six am and _would not_ let him return to his dreams about Brennan. He had not slept more than four hours at the most and he could very well either die, vomit into the silver bowl on the coffee table in front of him, or pass out. He couldn't decide between the three and so vacillated between all the options.

"Friday is a weekday," Brennan informed him coolly. He spread his hands out defensively, palms up.

"Come on!" he yelped. "It was Thirsty Thursday." Sweets glared.

"That's not an excuse and this is no longer college."

"What's Thirsty Thursday?" Brennan asked pointedly.

"You're kidding, right?" he asked grumpily. She glanced sourly at him. He softened his tone, remembering her last letter that had driven him to drink. It was a miracle he had made it home at all last night. He wondered if Cam was still passed out on his couch snoring up a storm. His mood lightened considerably at the thought of her being ruffled and late as well.

"So why did you go out last night?" Sweets asked, folding his hands as if they were in a conference. Booth frowned quizzically and also sardonically. Sweets missed the gesture at his grandfatherly ways and took the personal affront.

"Why not?" Booth asked shrewdly, squinting his eyes and leaning his head forward. "I'm still alive."

"Periodic drinking leads to-" Brennan began.

"Jesus Bones, you make me sound like a drunk. I'm _not_ a drunk!" He emphasized. Sweets held up placating hands.

"Now Agent Booth, I think what you're feeling is residual anger at your father-"

Booth stood up so fast Sweets gulped and swallowed the end of his sentence when Booth thrust his face too close for comfort as he ground his knuckles into the arms of Sweets' chair.

"I thought we made it clear we don't _ever_ talk about my old man."

"She brought it up," Sweets gestured weakly. Booth about grabbed his tie. He knew Sweets could tell that he was exerting copious amounts of self control by the weakening of the tight little crinkles around his eyes of alarm. Booth rattled the chair instead.

"Well let's make it _crystal clear like Waterford glass_ that no matter _who_ starts the conversation, then he or she better finish it." He swiveled his head around on his neck to glare at Brennan over the shoulder of his grey suit. She had sucked in a breath but was staring at him impassively as if he were a fascinating new specimen in her lab.

"Got it," Sweets cleared the squeak out of his throat.

"So are we done for the day?" Booth asked. Sweets swallowed and nodded, folding his hands in that irritating way again.

"Yeah. Sure. We're done. See you on Monday. Or Tuesday," he prevaricated quickly. "Whichever works best for you."

"But we just started!" Brennan protested. "We haven't even been here for five minutes."

"Count your blessings Bones," Booth muttered as he brushed past her to open the door. She was at his side in an instant, ducking under his arm. He rolled his eyes. He hadn't been holding the door for her. He let it slam shut behind him, satisfied at the noise.

"But I thought you said never to count your chickens before they-"

"Do chickens and blessings even sound remotely the same to you Bones?" Booth growled as he stomped to the elevator. She frowned.

"No, but I would say that in some poor countries chickens would most definitely be counted as a blessing."

"You know what?" he griped.

"What?" she blinked back. He opened her mouth to make a cruel crack about a chicken named Fred but closed his mouth slowly and put an arm around her shoulder.

"What would you say to making me taller in your next book?" She laughed and threaded her arm through his.

"I will never understand you," she vowed.

"This is one of those times where I'd advise you not to count all your chickens just yet," Booth laughed.

* * *

"Booth," he barked in her favorite soldier bark. Booth glanced over to see Brennan's suppressed smile. "_What?" _he yelped.

"Booth," she tapped his arm obsessively. "Booth!" He glared at her and waved a hand to tell her to go away.

She waved a French fry in his field of vision tauntingly before crunching down on his lunch in vindictive pleasure. She skirted the oozing juice from the hamburger and stuck to the perimeter, working in an ever closer circle in demolishing his steaming fries while he worked on the phone. He slitted his eyes in displeasure at her and smacked the back of one of her hands when she went for the last one far enough away from the beef.

"Ow!" she screeched and punched him, hard, and he regretted the swat. He pinched the bridge of his nose until he could feel his nails leaving marks between his eyes right where the bridge of his sunglasses would rest if he was wearing his aviators with those pinchy little plastic parts. She immediately became concerned. Booth knew by a brush with his bad shave and his reflection in the diner window that his haggard appearance and purple under eye circles were scaring her again.

"Up," he barked at her, waving the waitress over with a carryout box for the car as he clicked the end call button on his phone. Bless her she came with a coke float in a to-go cup as well. Brennan winked half out of astonishment and half out of visceral reaction to his fingers swiping too close to the right side of her face.

"We've got a case?" Booth grinned humorlessly.

"We've got a case."

Brennan skipped along his leggy stride though her height was not a problem. Booth suspected her slower step to be from her newfound habit of wearing three inch high boots on the case. It made him lose his height advantage. That annoyed him.

"Where is it?"

"Georgetown."

"On Wisconsin? M street?"

"No. Like the university. Somebody lit a woman on fire on Healey lawn."

"The university?" Brennan's voice escalated in pitch with indignation as if the murder was a personal affront to academic eggheads everywhere. "Are you sure?"

"Yep. They found her body taped up to the statue of John Carroll at the Front Gates at 37th and O streets."

"Her?" Brennan asked skeptically. Booth gave her a sick little smirk.

"Let's just say parts of her cleared the fire with help of a kitchen knife that leave little doubt to her gender."

"Sex," Brennan said.

"Excuse me?" Booth asked, bleeping the open button on his car keys. Brennan's mind worked in mysterious ways. One minute he was telling her about a severed penis in the grass and the next she was suggesting…

"You said gender. Gender is a socially constructed term about sexual preference, career expectations and a prepackaged regard towards mannerisms based on gender identity. Gender has very little to do with anatomical differences." Booth was rolling his eyes before she was even halfway done with her corrective tirade.

"We'll never get into bed together," Booth groaned, referring back to her joke that she would get him into bed. He slammed the car door.

Brennan gave him a half smirk of smug self assurance.

* * *

He loosened his tie as he opened one of the letters from the unopened pile on his kitchen table. He had moved them for easy access. Plus his kitchen table was so cluttered with crap that if Brennan had ever just waltzed in, he highly doubted she would ever see the letters in the chaos at all.

The case had been rife with wailing students and grief stricken faculty. Booth was pretty sure that any curveballs Brennan could throw at him in her diary would be fat pitches compared to _his_ hangover induced day.

_April 4__th__, 2009_

_Dear Cam,_

Cam. CAM? Why on _earth_ would she be writing to Cam? Booth had to admit he might have expected a letter to Cam when she first came and usurped Brennan's authority – not to mention encroached on their budding partnership…

_You're such an ass_, his mind snidely remarked. _How very self serving to believe that Cam was a big enough threat to be a life changing event since you are so obviously the center of Brennan's universe._ Booth did have to admit he was a little surprised there was only one letter to him.

He burped into a fist, tasting the burger he had eaten earlier at the diner. He really had to stop eating out with Brennan around…but every time she got those big blue eyes to go the littlest bigger or bluer, he about melted.

_ Dear Cam, _

_I'm so very happy you've decided to adopt Michelle. Usually I write these letters during times of my life that have changed me, however it is your life that is about to be radically altered. The reason I've chosen to converse with you is because you are the last person in the lab family I have not yet addressed, the others having irritated or flummoxed me long before now. _

_The reason I write you as the last person derives from many facets. There was the initial jealousy I felt when you were handed the job I thought I desired. Now I realize how foolish I would have been to take it; my tastes for the field with Booth, my freedom in my schedule and my limited social skills make my current position far more desirables than your salary bump could ever be. And I highly doubt that I would ever need it. I hardly work for the money. _

Typical Brennan. Modest as always. It's a wonder her virtue-naming parents didn't saddle her with something truly awful like Humility.

_The second reason I can think of is because of my jealousy of your friendship with Booth. It took me quite a while before I realized that the dynamic you and Booth share is far different than the dynamic he and I do. _

Booth preened a little. He was wondering when his name would come up.

_But I realize now that you're much too similar; you're both hot tempered, both were cops and in reality, you're much too smart for him. _

Booth scowled more than he preened. A tiny little voice suggested truth to Brennan's words. It made him scowl more.

_The third and final reason I have not felt the need to write you is that you, frankly enough, seemed to be passing through my life. The lab adored you, and you were an excellent coworker, helping to save mine and Booth's lives on multiple counts, but I never considered you part of the family I was building until two days ago, when the body of your ex-fiancé was brought in, mauled and eaten by a tiger. It was only when I saw you truly suffering, truly battling with yourself about Michelle, that I realized I cared very much about your well being. _

_I didn't like seeing you in pain; that's a rare experience for me. I am usually rather indifferent when interviewing the people we have to question whose loved ones have been slain. _

Booth half smiled. Brennan's endearing qualities were also sometimes her most obstinate ones. Her penchant for telling the truth, not sparing herself any scrutiny, was very unusual for the human race. At times the truth was even better than the white lies of keeping the nastier thoughts to herself.

_So it is today, after ice cream and beer with Booth, after you went to see Michelle about adopting her, that I sit tonight, penning this letter by my fireplace. I needed to tell you how much I admire you before I lose heart and put off this letter indefinitely as I have done for so many others._

Booth had to wonder as he gulped. There were so many _unwritten_ letters, still locked inside Brennan's head. And there was no way to get to them.

_There is one way, _his honest mind whispered. _By telling her the truth. _

Booth scowled more deeply.

_Because what you are doing is magnificent. You aren't just reconnecting with a girl you once knew. You are doing so much more. Although Michelle wouldn't have ended up in the System as I did, you still saved her life and what little childhood she could grab onto. You saved her from a life of being raised by a stranger. Being shuttered into a life where she didn't belong. Living that kind of life, you tend to feel claustrophobic. You get put in a box because the family doesn't know where to put you and like useless bric-a-brac you are shoved from room to room, house to house, never settling, never permanent and never wanted._

_You may not feel this way but please believe me today you are a hero._

Booth felt his eyes crinkle up at the corners with sincerity and soul. He loved Cam like a sister, and for Brennan – _Brennan – _to notice how hard Cam tried was truly touching.

_You well know that I was in foster care. My life has been a soap opera for the lab to gape at. Yet nobody knows the real horrors. First they put all your clothes in trash bags, making you feel like garbage. And they root through your house and sell all those things you collected in your previous life that are worth anything. They make you sit as investors and other couples come and stare at your home, at your furniture, and walk through the house and touch all of _your_ things that are no longer yours. _

_In the System you get ranked a number of how troublesome of a temperament you have, like you're some sort of criminal, or genocide victim, or simply a prisoner, given and labeled with an inerasable number that is everywhere you turn, overlaid on everything you own and everything you do. Children with high numbers are suspected when they go to the store to buy gum, when they talk to the siblings of the biological parents or even when they pet the dog. We are severely damaged, the numbers sing. We are waiting to spring. We are waiting to shoplift, to hurt your children and torture your pets._

_If this is not enough for you to fully appreciate what you have just saved Michelle from, the guilt of what has happened will eat you up inside until you want to run away – run home. But you can never go home again. Some new couple now lives in your home, touching your furniture, with a baby in your room. Some new thrift store owns most of your clothes and all of your jewelry. Some new garbage man gets to stare at the pictures of your family that were thrown away before you could snatch them up. Home isn't home anymore. Home isn't anywhere anymore. _

_The guilt of kids in foster care is palpable. It's everywhere. It creeps into the mouth and ears. It hollows out the eyes and carves out the hearts. We know rationally, it is not our fault, but that doesn't stop our bodies from feeling that way, or our minds from torturing us with the memories. We are cruel to each other. We enjoy it. We become a tiny cramped camp of little sadists, trying to outdo each other with heartbreak and loss. I was never the best. My parents left, ran away and my brother did the same. I was one of the most ordinary stories I knew. Other children were taken from live families with mothers who pulled knives on them and sisters who cooked up meth labs in their bathrooms. There were children with scars crisscrossing their faces, their hands, and their wrists. There were the children who were the most broken, revered as kings and rulers in the pecking order of most difficult in the foster system. _

Booth felt his ears grow hot. He couldn't tell if it was out of anger or regret. Perhaps it was out of hatred. Perhaps out of sorrow. He only knew that no child should be put in a place like the one Brennan described. It hurt his heart to know that she had been that child.

_Cam, you are incredible pathologist. Your work ethic is unparalleled. And I know you will be an incredible mother because the same need for perfection will drive you to do what's best for Michelle. She is very lucky to have you, whether you come to realize it or not. Please believe that _I _realize it. And I respect you for it._

_Today you are a hero._

_I don't know what kind of childhood you had, but I do know the kind that Michelle had with you and Dr. Welton. You gave her a beautiful life, and I know you will do the best you can to mend the tragedy and continue that dream._

_With warmest regards and utmost respect,_

_Brennan_

Booth knew suddenly, what he was going to do.


	19. Wants To Give Up And Lie Down

**It came in waves. **

**I love Parker.**

* * *

"Aren't you glad Michelle doesn't go here?" Brennan asked cheerfully, picking her way carefully through the flowerbeds to get at the statue with the decomposing torched _thing_ that looked very little like a corpse. Cam, who was wading through the flowers regardless of the school's feelings, looked sourly at Brennan.

"Oh, I don't know," she said cheerlessly, looking at the soaring gothic architecture, the gorgeous grounds with their cast iron gates and the random entourage of an African dignitary being trailed eagerly by students hoping for a story, "it's not so shabby."

"_Shabby?" _laughed Brennan in her surprised, too loud laugh. "Those cannons date back to the civil war!" Booth looked to where her finger pointed and felt his eyebrows raise. Sure enough, under the clock tower sat two black cannons, looking more like old movie props than anything else. "And did you know," Brennan continued blithely to Cam's utter disparagement, "that they are the only cannons or weapons of any kind allowed to point at Capitol Hill? It's because they were used in helping the Union reintegrate the nation and emancipate thousands of-"

"Wow, look at this cooker," Cam interrupted hastily, poking the bone with a forefinger. Booth winced and shook his head in squinted disgust. She wasn't even wearing a glove yet.

"Don't touch that," Brennan corrected. Cam rolled her eyes over to Booth, exasperation written all over her face, clearly demanding that he rein her in or there would be hell to pay. Booth threw up his hands defensively, one clutching his badge, the other his pad of paper, to inform her there was nothing he could do to help.

Cam scowled and snapped the latex of her gloves particularly cruelly. Brennan was oblivious.

"What do we have?" Booth barked, the question coming so naturally in his normal professional cadence he didn't even notice it. The President of the University however, jumped.

"We can only hope it's not a student," he stuttered.

"Female," Brennan mused.

"Oh God," the man moaned. A nearby priest in black collared attire crossed himself. Booth had to restrain from doing the same. He knew Georgetown was a Catholic university, but the universal gesture was forcing his hand.

"Not a student," mused Brennan in the same bored tone as she squinted hard at the skeleton. Booth had to compress his lips together forcibly to keep from taunting that her face might freeze like that. His tautened features must have scared the President who began to stutter out more futile hopes. Booth knew it had to be faculty or staff. A crime this motivated – a murder left in broad daylight on the grounds of a university – hardly a random act of violence.

"Late forties, early fifties," continued Brennan. She sighed, and tilted her head at an angle that made _Booth's _neck ache just watching. "Caucasian."

"That's all?" spluttered the president. Booth rounded on him, his note taking forgotten.

"Listen pal," he snapped, "we know how to do our jobs."

"Easy," cautioned Cam under her breath. She knew something was getting under his skin. It got under his skin even more that she knew and was making a scene about _how _well she knew him. It wasn't as if Brennan would notice, but God forbid one of the others show up. He almost growled a feral growl her way before he huffed and stormed over to Brennan. Ever since late night drinks with Cam, she had been acting much too mother bear around him to be tolerated; three quarters curiosity, one quarter expectant pity, already knowing by his irritability how royally he had screwed up.

"Not an athlete," Brennan mused. Cam held up something white, charred and _disgusting_ to his nose.

"Definitely not an athlete," Cam shook her head. "She had some weight on her. This is just congealed fat tissue."

"You mean she was obese," Brennan stated baldly. "Yes that is congruent with the skeletal structure." Cam did the exasperated eye roll at Booth again. Brennan's bluntness was sometimes taken as incredibly rude.

"So she was a…larger," Booth put delicately, raising his eyebrows pointedly at Brennan as he underscored the word as he wrote it. Her face lit up with understanding and she smiled by gritting her lower jaw out the way she always did when she thought they were talking in code.

"Yes," she adjoined, "a _larger_, white female."

"Exactly," Booth smiled just for her and her jutting grin turned shy and flattered the way it always did. He liked that he had that effect on her; it made the tables just the slightest bit more fair. He was a gambler, and she was his table. And just as the saying went, the house always, always won. She turned and slapped the statue.

"I'm going to need this sent back to the lab." Booth thought the President would burst into tears.

* * *

It was dark in his apartment. He wouldn't ever say it aloud, but he loved the smell of Parker's shoes and little boy sweat that lingered on his baseball hat by the front door. It cast a sweet little shadow over the tongues of his sneakers that were yanked too high from his eager heels pulling them out.

Spaghetti was easy to make and easy to clean up so the apartment also smelled of marinara sauce and frozen microwaved meatballs. Booth padded quietly to the fridge to grab a beer; he didn't like drinking in front of his son.

"Dad?" said a small voice, and Booth turned around so fast that Parker flinched, shining like a little slumber clung angel in the fridge light. Booth instantly hated himself for scaring his only child.

"Hey Bud," he said with a frown, his beer already open. He put it on the counter to warm.

"It's ok. I won't tell Mom," Parker promised solemnly. Booth swallowed hard; he used to make that same promise.

"Ah, I don't want it anyway. It went bad."

"That can happen?" Parker asked skeptically. Booth changed the subject.

"Hey, what are you doing out of bed?"

"I had a nightmare," he whimpered. Although Parker was nine years old, when his pajamas are on, he went straight back to being six.

"Hey," crooned Booth, going to scoop him up. Parker flinched again so he quickly transmuted his attempted hug into a hair ruffle that Parker ducked out of scowling, obviously vain about his hair regardless of the time of day.

"Will you read me a story?" he begged.

"A story?" Booth asked skeptically.

"Please Dad? And not just baseball statistics."

"Well I don't really have any-"

"Bones gave me one!"

"She did." It wasn't a question, or even surprise. His flat acceptance and frown melted the lingering fear lining his young son's eyes and made him laugh.

"Yeah. She said it was a good bed time book."

"Uh _huh_." He seriously doubted it.

"Yeah!" Parker said eagerly, tugging his Dad's hand now that it was _cool_ to do so. "It's called _Dracula._"

"I don't know Parks, that could be kind of scary-"

"No way!" scoffed Parker. "She said it was written like a bajillion years ago."

"Really? A bajillion?" Booth asked as he absently straightened a framed baseball card as he padded toward Parker's room.

"Well like a hundred. They didn't know what being scary _was_."

"Okay…"Booth said doubtfully.

"She also said a bunch of other stuff," Parker said, bouncing on his knees until the springs creaked in the mattress. Booth forcibly restrained him with one big hand as Parker rummaged through his backpack next to his nightstand. "Something about old and new. And themes of science or something really boring."

"Of course she did," Booth said in the same, flat, droll tone that had Parker giggling again.

"You like her don't you?" he sing-songed.

"_What?"_ Booth almost shouted. He changed it to a whisper. "_What? _Who said that?"

"No one," shrugged Parker. "Are you going to get married? Do I have to call her Mom? Can I still call her Bones? Are you going to live here? Because she's super rich and you should buy a house with a big backyard and a dog and a pool and a-"

"All right, that's enough," Booth said sternly, secretly relieved Parker was more preoccupied with the amount of _stuff_ he might glean from the partnering – and a heavy irony on the usage of partnering. He winced as the mattress springs screamed under his weight as he climbed in next to Parker, blocking him from the light.

"Here you go Dad," said Parker, obediently wriggling like a puppy under his twisted sheets and handing over a book. Booth felt his heart swell just the littlest bit the way it always did when Parker said 'Dad' in his most proud voice. It made him feel good. Loved.

He glanced at the book. Predictably, it was leather bound and the pages were gilded. Bones needed to figure out what kids could handle. He opened it up and cleared his throat a little self consciously. He began to read but as soon as he got to the first dialogue Parker interrupted him.

"_No_ Dad, you have to do the voices."

"The voices?"

"Yeah, how else am I supposed to know who's talking?"

"Context?"

"What's context?"

"I'll do the voices." Parker smiled smugly.

It took only ten minutes before Parker was fast asleep and Booth was leaning against the headboard when he realized his hand was caressing the letter in his pocket. He sighed and opened it, squinting a little in the lamplight next to Parker's golden curls.

It had an interesting title:_ Letter to a Regret_

_March 19__th__ 2007_

_To Agent Timothy Sullivan, or more fondly remembered as Sully,_

Booth felt his eyebrows disappear into his hairline. Damn. Lifechanging? Him? He scoffed under his breath. _Sully gets a letter and she knew him like what…a few weeks – two months? And I only get _one _letter? Where's the justice in that?_

He was disgruntled. It wasn't justice like in the comic books where there was a whole league of superheroes to dole it out, regardless of how great Brennan looked in a Wonder Woman costume. Booth smothered a shameful grin at one of his favorite - albeit incredibly nerdy - fantasies.

_After meeting Booth's therapist_ – Booth had to fume again. Therapist? _Therapist? _Wyatt was _not_ his therapist. He only went to him because he had to. And then because he wanted to. But…but…he ground his teeth. Regardless of what he had said to cajole Brennan into meeting Gordon-Gordon and as wonderfully as that had worked out, it was not _therapy._ Not really. Booth hastily returned his glower back to the paper before his mind could reason out what his bullheaded heart believed.

_After meeting Booth's therapist, I've come to view your departure in a whole new light. My previous feelings of guilt – of not coming with you, shame – at not being able to bring myself to go with you – and regret – for not taking a spontaneous chance for once in my life, have cleared somewhat. I've decided instead to rationally map out how I feel._

Of course she had.

_I adored you. _

Booth stopped to seethe a little.

_That feeling has dimmed somewhat since you have left the city and of course my bedroom – _Booth stopped to seethe a lot – _I have come to rationally conclude we were two attractive sexually compatible people who were both looking for something at the same time in our lives. Regardless of what I know of your past, _Booth felt his lips twist to one side in puckered interest – _I know my own fairly well. _His lips melted into a smile tinged with guilt but also with pity. He now knew her past fairly well too.

_You made me feel like someone other than Bones. Other than Dr. Temperance Brennan. I'm not saying you forced me to regress back into Temperance or even my childhood moniker of Tempe, but instead you brought out a facet of me that has never before been seen. She was fun and impulsive, spontaneous and warm. She was everything I am not, and you loved her. _

_ I think that is why I cannot go with you. It is not Booth_. Booth wanted desperately to know if it was; in a previous letter she had admitted she would have sailed away with him, had he asked. _It is not even that I cannot lead a purposeless life as Dr. Wyatt suggested. The truth is that I am not usually the woman you were with. I do not usually laugh so much or so often. I do not usually analyze your motives with Angela as carefully as I did before sleeping with you. I do not usually care so much for someone so quickly. _

_ And it scared me. _

Booth sighed. It really wasn't surprising that it did.

_I was scared that if we sailed away that one of two options might happen. The first and almost preferable one would be I would leave, and I would slowly change into the kind of person you wanted me to be. I would change so much, I would agree with you and never want to go back to my old life again. __The only problem with that would be sacrificing my new family, the people I am coming to love after years of working with them, for you, only a man. In utilitarian aspects that would be incongruent, as I would forsake the many for the individual. That is neither rational or logical._

Booth sighed; the heart wasn't either of those things, when would she learn? He felt sad, achingly so, that she hadn't gone with Sully. As she wrote here, she could have had a better life. A sweeter life.

_Another aspect of the problem is the change in me. I have changed so much, so frequently, I am dangerously close to becoming one of those sad individuals who questions her own identity. I never understood those people who were always trying to 'find' themselves. Where had they gone? Didn't they know who they were? How could they not; they lived their life. _

Booth bit his lip. He remembered quite well Brennan's near hysteria upon discovering her mother's bones in Limbo. She had spluttered and choked out:

"My name is Dr. Temperance Brennan. I work at the Jeffersonian Institution. I'm a Forensic Anthropologist. I specialize in identif... in identifying... in identifying people when nobody knows who they are. My father was a science teacher. My mother was a bookkeeper. My brother... I have a brother. I'm Dr. Temperance Brennan."

And he had held her and told her that he knew who she was.

_I have been a little girl – once called Joy. She fled before my parent's mistakes to become Tempe. Tempe fled when my parents chased their flawed lives and left Temperance in her wake. And there was a wake for Temperance when I became Brennan, and without a ripple she disappeared as I became Bones. Don't you see, Sully – _Booth blinked. He had forgotten she was writing to Sully. He had felt as if she was writing to him, explaining the reasons that kept them apart. _– I couldn't risk it all one more time on a whim that had a fifty percent chance of actually working, but a 100% chance of changing who I was. And I was frightened. And it was terrifying. And you…weren't enough. _

Booth flinched. That was cold even for Bones.

_I don't mean to say that as a person you weren't enough, but rather the life you were offering was enticing to be sure, but not worth the risk from myself I would need to take. Angela told me to go. Booth even told me to go, to my surprise. I think they wanted me to be happy. But I couldn't, because of the second outcome._

_If I had gone, the other option that would have happened to us when we were sailing around the Caribbean is that I would have become bored. I would have grown impatient. Although I am endlessly resourceful – _he chuckled. She was modest as always – _your trip seemed to be operating on an indefinite timeline. Dr. Wyatt was right in that a purposeless life would only have the glamour of a few weeks. Afterward, regardless if we opened a clinic, or built houses, or opened a restaurant, I'd feel ruined. Wasted. Irritated. _

_ This failing on my part would grow between us, invisibly, an elephant not only looming in the room, but trampling any affection that might still linger. I would grow to resent you for stealing me from the life I had known. I would grow to hate myself for squandering my potential, delaying my career and destroying my carefully cultivated pool of acquaintances turned friends. _ _The only person I could be sure of returning to, affections unchanged is-_

Angela, Booth finished smugly.

_Hodgins._ Booth was floored. _What?_

_Because Hodgins and I have been through a sort of hell together. We have been to war. We are comrades, of a sort, or at least I think so. Angela is too flighty, and Booth is too flirty. Zack may still have idolized me, yet I hardly count him as a peer. _

Brennan was being cold again. Booth couldn't decide if it was the subject matter making her that way or because this was the Brennan of five years before. She had come such a long way. He felt his usual flash of pride squashed by his usual flash of guilt that he took credit for her transformation.

_My family that I have carefully tailored, but just as carefully kept at a distance, would forget me. And I couldn't bear to let that happen again. I am tired of everyone leaving; I am tired of being forgotten._

To Booth, that made all the sense in the world.

_So you can see, in conclusion, it had _nothing_ to do with you, your failings or even with my feelings – strictly fraternal – towards Booth. Regardless of your knowledge of kinesiology, cooking and even carpentry, not to mention your outstanding record at the FBI, the flaws and foibles that foiled our attempt are mine and mine alone. _

_ I am too broken to be who you want, and too proud to be who I am._

_ With love always,_

_ Temperance_

Booth's eyes snagged on the closing note: 'with love always.' It made him swallow. He never knew how much Brennan had truly cared for Sully. Her struggle with her decision not to go with him had been carefully thought out, just as carefully weighed, and then rationally discarded. She had only dictated and sorted through her feelings verbally afterwards.

It hurt his heart that she was careful not to hurt anyone else. Only herself. Not for the first time Booth ruminated on that fact that Brennan was a master of self hurt, of careful denial and wrapped up feelings. He sighed and scratched his five o'clock shadow. He had to fall for the complicated ones.

"Dad?" mumbled Parker, slitting dark brown eyes against the light. Booth jumped a little; he had forgotten where he was.

"Yeah bud?" he asked gently, closing the still open book with the letter tucked between the pages.

"Are you reading without me?"

"Sorry," he whispered guiltily; it was the easiest answer. Parker was too sleepy to really be angry.

"Don't anymore 'k?"

"Ok sport."

"Can you turn off the light?"

"Yeah." The gentle click melded seamlessly with his footsteps; the sounds were brighter than the shadows as he slipped to the doorway.

"Leave it cracked," Parker whispered.

"I love you," Booth whispered back.

"Always," mumbled Parker sleepily. Booth swallowed and pulled out his phone as he padded to his bedroom.

"Goodnight," he told her.

She didn't respond.


	20. So Stand In The Rain, Stand Your Ground

"Bones!" squealed Parker, flinging the door wide open for her. He was still in his pjs even though it was almost noon. Booth looked up from his cereal on the couch. He hadn't expected her. He had thought it was Rebecca, which is why he had let Parker answer the door.

"Hey Bones," he said gladly but cautiously. She looked a little uncomfortable. He didn't need his intuition to pick up that she had come by to talk.

"Booth," she said gesturing with a motion that looked more like a flail.

"Cereal?" he gestured with his bowl. She gave a half shrug.

"I'm fine."

"Juice?"

"I'm fine."

"Anything?"

"No, I'm fine."

"You know, Bones, I'm starting to pick up that you're fine." She gave a wan, strained smile.

"Can I talk to you?" He almost made a flippant comment but instead glanced over his shoulder at his curious son lingering in the kitchen.

"Parks, go get dressed."

"But _Dad_," he whined.

"I'm serious. Your mother will be here any minute."

"Aw, can't I stay here? With you and Bones?"

"Parker, I can read to you if you want," Brennan offered unexpectedly. "At least until your Mom gets here."

"Ok," he agreed a little too quickly. He adored her.

"And clean up your room."

"But _Dad_," Parker repeated with even more dragging footsteps and whining threading through his voice.

"If you don't," Booth warned in his best adult tone – sometimes he still felt like a joke, being a father – "Then Bones won't have anywhere to sit to read you Dracula."

"Yeah but it's really boring so far," Parker whined. "I fell asleep."

"It gets better," Brennan promised him and smiled. "And I read better than Booth does."

"Because you're smarter?" Parker asked hopefully.

"Parker! Room!" Booth barked. Parker fled with a little squeak and scuttled down the short hall.

"There," Booth sighed offering Brennan a bit of clean couch. "He always dawdles cleaning his room, hoping he can leave before he's done. What's up?"

"I…um…" Brennan cleared her throat. Booth had an immediate sinking feeling. "I don't know how to ask…but…a box has gone missing in my apartment…it's nothing really," she added quickly, eyes wide with fright. "I just…was wondering if maybe you've seen it?"

"Did someone break in?" Booth asked, voice pitched too high in panic. She took his panic as concern and her face softened, not in affection, but towards fear. She trusted him to take care of the situation. He felt his stomach turn with guilt; he thought he might need to sprint to the bathroom with the conga line worming its way through his intestines.

"No," Brennan said unsurely. "At least I don't think so…I have many artifacts that are expensive and worth stealing, not to mention jewelry…but only the box is missing."

"What does it look like?" Booth asked, trying to keep his voice level. He knew exactly what it looked like; it was dancing before his eyes.

"Just a silly collaged box I made a long time ago, when I was a teenager. I actually made it with a foster family; the mother thought it'd be a good activity for the family. It's not important," she added hastily, "just…"

"Important to you," Booth finished, heart thundering. Surely she would notice. Surely she would realize.

"Yes," she smiled gratefully. She leaned into his shoulder. He felt sick to his stomach in her utter faith in him. He sprung to his feet.

"I should get dressed," he stuttered.

"It _is_ Sunday," she said with a half smile. "I'm sure you don't need to. Besides," she teased, worry still creasing around her eyes, "isn't today the day of rest?"

"Well at least let me put on a clean shirt," he gulped.

"You can shower later Booth," she said, suddenly aware she might be intruding. "I'll leave now…I just wanted to come by and ask…"

"No!" he yelped. "No," he said again, modulating his tone. "Stay, really. Have you asked your father?" Her face suddenly cleared of worry, as if he had offered her the sun as proof of warmth.

"That's who must have it," she sighed. "Or Russ, maybe one of the girls knocked it down…"

"I'm done!" Parker shrieked, pounding down the hall on quick feet. He was dressed but barefoot, socks in one hand, shoes in the other. "It's clean, I _swear_ Dad," Parker promised solemnly.

"Don't swear," Booth reprimanded absently. Parker had finished in record time. His son sprung across the room like a flying squirrel, landing in a boyish pile on an armchair, limbs sprawled in order to catch his weight as he squirmed around to shove his socks on.

"I'm ready Bones!" Parker squealed.

"Now you can shower Booth," Brennan smiled. "I'll be fine with Parker here."

"Yeah Dad," Parker said, puffing out his chest. "You hear that? She'll be _fine_."

"Thanks Bud," he said in mock gratitude. "Do you know where the book is?"

"I'll find it," Parker sprang up.

"Finish putting your socks on," laughed Brennan. Booth's heart filled. She would make a great mom any day of the week.

Booth saluted and then slouched down the hall, passing his bedroom. The entire contents of Brennan's letterbox sat in a drawer not five feet away. He hesitated. He could hand them over, all of them, sealed as they were, admitted he had crushed it, but he hadn't read them…would she believe him?

But there were two letters left. Two. And then he could do it. He could get the box from Angela. He could say….he could figure out what to say. He nodded but found himself standing in his room, stuck in front of the drawer, staring down at them all. He quickly picked up the two last letters and some clean underwear, not bothering to shove the drawer closed all the way. He jogged down the hall guiltily, hearing Parker tearing around in a frenzy, looking for the book under all the cluttered crap that had accumulated on every available counter space.

He absently closed the bathroom door and turned on the shower handle. He stripped down to his boxers and then slumped onto the closed toilet, naked save his underwear, to quickly scan the last two letters.

The first was _Letter to a Love_. Booth scowled. Like he wanted to read _another_ letter like Sully's. He quickly panned to the one behind it.

_Letter to a Prodigy_

Booth knew what this letter meant to Brennan, which is why he had saved it for last. Surprisingly enough, many of the other letters had been more personal, more heart wrenching, more insightful than he could have ever previously guessed. He felt like hell, but holding the last letter between his fingers was too tempting so suddenly grow a conscious, regardless of what Gordon-Gordon preached.

_Zack-_

_After his release from a Siberian prison, Alexander Solzhenistsyn gained overnight fame as a novelist. One day he was summoned to the opulent office of an admiring Soviet official. In those comfortable, lavish surroundings, the agony of the Soviet prison camp seemed very far away. "It is impossible for a man who is warm to understand one who is cold," he concluded. _

Trust Brennan with an indecipherable impossible opening.

_ I'm a cold blooded person. I too, dislike the metaphorical and vague attribution of an entire genus of reptile as a representation for a personality type, but for the sake of this argument I must utilize it best I can. I am cold blooded in the sense that I am an empiricist. You too, are an empiricist. You will understand me perfectly when I dictate facts, figures and algorithms in place of social currency such as chatting, cocktails or emotions. Those are illogical, unpredictable and often elusive of my abilities. Because we are so alike, I do not find the need to explain what being 'cold blooded' in that sense means._

_ But I am also cold blooded the way a snake without sunlight becomes lethargic. Without work, without focus, I become nothing. I sink into apathy, into a very wellspring of the emotions I try so very hard to tune out. It waits there, next to me, inside of me, always. Despair. The meaninglessness of my life in a vast galaxy of others. _

_ I know why you did it. _

_ I can understand why Gormogon lured you in. _

_ Because there's nothing to live for. _

Booth sat back heavily on the toilet, feeling the porcelain cutting cruelly into his back where the lid met his skin. He sucked a deep breath but didn't let it out. It hung, suspended, inside of him, pressuring his lungs, causing his fingers to shake with tremors, and his head to swim. Only when he felt _something_ did he let it out.

_Booth has religion. I think that's the main function of it actually; it provides hope to the uneducated masses that there might be some sort of cosmic order to the random patterns of our lives. But our lives are pi__._

_ Even after a hundred digits, a thousand, which I will not print here, we do not repeat. There is no order in the chaos, no greater meaning. No good and evil. No purpose. No Higher Power. No "plan." There are just people doing the best or the worst as they choose. As _we_ choose._

_ Now I know as an anthropologist you are about to object to the lack of order I have posited. Let me clarify, or rectify my written error. It is not that humans do not make patterns – as a species we are not nearly clever enough to be even remotely creative – for we do. There are hundreds and thousands of patterns, one for every person, I'm sure. There are the cultural patterns of Western Democracy and Eastern Confucianism. There is the Western belief that all men are born flawed, and the countering Eastern belief that all men are born gifted. Women have certain customs, as do men. Elderly people in Miami have different customs than their counterparts even in Georgia, the neighboring state, and both of their customs are radically different than the Elder tribes of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia. _

_ I myself see endless repetition of actions every day. Booth always drinks his coffee a certain way, I always dress in the same order, and people always murder for love or money. _

Bones sounded so…jaded. He scratched heavily at his stubble, leaving nail marks. He wasn't sure he could refute it.

_My point is that I understand your reasoning, albeit flawed, as the postulates you gave to me were, that you needed a drive, a motive, a passion. Mine is my work. My science_.

Her religion.

_My partnership with Booth._

Come again? Booth blinked stupidly at the paper. Typically, she left the explanation dangling and blithely moved along.

_You had nothing else to drive you, to ingrain you with a sense of purpose._

_My third description is I am cold blooded in the sense I have a low body mass index and so I am always chilly. This may sound foolish, but Booth is always warm. As I told Sweets earlier this year, this is only one in a myriad of ways in which we complement each other. We may fight day in and day out. We may agree on hardly anything, but I've slowly come to realize that I live a little more each day just to be closer to Booth. To lean into him when I am cold, to annoy him when I turn up the car thermostat –_ That did annoy him – _when I go home to an empty apartment and he's there waiting with take out. _

_ I've never really had a friend before_.

She always made him feel horrible. Privileged. Booth wanted to snort; he wasn't privileged in any sense of the word. He had been born on the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak. He had a passably white-collar job from a blue-collar family. He paid child support. He had been abused. But when Bones said one little line like that – not even looking to garner sympathy or pity – this was Zack, after all – she made him feel like the luckiest kid in the world. He was off boozing with his friends under the bleachers while she was getting yelled at at home – a home that wasn't even hers. He had been coasting through high school in the one sense, she in the other, and it wasn't even a contest seeing how hellish her experiences had been. Her only friend had been the janitor. The one who let her cut up dead animals.

_I've had many friends in the sense that we were amicable, we occasionally saw one another outside of the work setting and we were fairly tolerable of each other's presence (excluding, of course, all physical relationships). But I have never had a best friend for any length of time, nor anyone I trust so much as Booth. _

And Booth knew how hellish her other friendships had become. She wasn't the little girl covered in blood, as she thought. She wasn't the pariah; it was everyone else. Booth felt his stomach begin to ache.

_ You were friends with Hodgins, good friends, as much as my limited people skills and my vacillating attention between listening to Angela and reading my emails tell me. I understand what it's like to suddenly become obsolete. I do. _

Booth's insides curdled. He really felt ill, even more so knowing she was sitting a few feet away, waiting patiently for his son to scrounge up her gorgeous leather bound book.

_ Hodgins began spending more and more time with Angela. She had the promise of sexual liaisons and you only had your company; please believe me when I tell you no one would ever choose me either. I was always last picked as well._

And she sucker punched him with another blasé one liner. She believed it as a fundamental truth of her life and Booth wanted to shake her and show her how wrong she was.

_ You are a genius. _

_ I greatly admire that. I sometimes even envy it. _

_ You looked up to me, Zack, but there were times when your mental acuity both scared and shocked me. I hated to admit it, but you were smarter than me. Your math skills were far beyond mine, your recollections for facts were incomprehensibly incredible and your memory was excellent. I greatly valued your contributions and your quick calculations, most of which saved me a great deal of tedious work. _

_ I still cannot believe what you did. I can understand it. I can pick out the beginnings of when you began to truly fracture and isolate yourself from the group – even more so than normal – and I am aware of the veracity of it occurring. Yet I still cannot believe it. _

_ Everything about you seems incongruous with the very idea you accepted. You wanted to believe that the collective is greater than the one. You believed a totalistic Utilitarian point of view would solve the world's problems. You knew you were someone different; you were born different. You had always been the outsider. For the first time, being the outsider was an advantage; someone had to make the difficult decisions of people's lives. _

Bones was sounding scarily like his sergeant had, drilling them on what it meant to be a sniper.

_You are an empiricist. You believe in numbers; you could make that choice with little of the lingering remorse that plagues those of average intelligence. _

_ Not only did you disregard your founding principle in order to save Hodgins, but you made a mistake. Yes, you did, regardless of what you may think._

_ You made a family._

And then, his heart broke.

_ I know, it's shocking. It happened to me by accident as well. Somehow the Lab has become a sort of surrogate family for all of us. It's a place where people care for one another; Cam noticed you ate Macaroni and Cheese every day. Angela crowned you King of the Lab. Booth pretended to find you annoying – mostly pretended, in the guise of perfect honesty – in order to "bond." _

He almost smiled; his face hurt.

_ But you knew what Gormogon stood for; you let him touch Parker, Booth's son. _Booth's hands fisted involuntarily in anger. _You let him almost kill Cam. I almost died in a fatal taxi ride. How could you let him touch us all? Yet you stepped in front of Hodgins._

_ We loved you. We love you. It's a strange and amorphous word, love. Booth's whole religion is founded upon it. Hodgins' and Angela's relationship is founded upon it. It seems it has somehow snuck into a laboratory of rational empiricists and made us, unwittingly, care for one another, foibles and all. _

_ So no, Zack, I still can't believe you killed someone. No, Zack, I still don't understand how you could walk out on, even in confusion, the people who cared and worked with you. But I _can_ comprehend why you ruined your hands for Hodgins, even if you yourself cannot. _

_ There is no pattern, no Greater Good, no balance scales, no afterlife. There is no meaning, no motive, only what we make of it. Some people choose hate. Some choose elitism. And some people do the best they can with what they have. _

Booth's heart was already broken, but her solidarity, her achingly cold acceptance of the 'facts' was grinding the shattered pieces to dust.

_ No one in this broken surrogacy is perfect Zack. Booth has a child out of wedlock. Hodgins doesn't have parents. Angela was raised without a mother. Cam is from the Bronx borough. My father is a murderer and a con artist. And you may have killed someone. _

_ But Booth has also saved my life countless times. Hodgins was there to help me survive the Grave Digger. Angela is my best friend, and always cares for everyone in the lab. Cam has brought us closer, and closed her own share of cases. My father is a good man, one who went to jail to stay close to me, just so he wouldn't have to leave again. And you were an intern who changed my life. _

_ I sent out that letter searching for interns never expecting to find one. I would work with up to three in five days. I didn't wish to intimidate you by telling you at the time, but you were the first intern to last a whole week. The week doubled. You lasted a month. By two months I made you my assistant; afterwards I didn't know how I managed without you. _

_ I still don't know how now._

_ No one will ever replace you Zack. _

_ No one will ever come close. _

_ The Russian __novelist Alexander Solzhenistsyn was incarcerated __for writing derogatory comments in letters to friends about the conduct of the war by Joseph Stalin.__ I do not need to inform you on the temperatures in Siberia; I have little doubt you could more than quadruple my knowledge just with what you know off the top of y__our head. Very simply: it's cold. Very simply: you're cold. The metaphor may be a bit belabored for your taste, but please believe I know what it's like to be cold. _

_ It's true I have never collaborated with a serial killer. _

_ I have never been committed to an insane asylum. _

_ But you know as well as I that in the Utilitarian aspect, intent equals the deed. I have actually killed someone; I shot a woman just days ago. I have been in a sort of prison: the Foster Care System. _

_ Do not think of me as your mentor in an opulent office; I too, have been cold. We're both cold-blooded. _

Booth had goosebumps. He wondered if he was really sick.

_ You will be sorely missed, Zack._

_ I know you never meant to cause us all this much pain. _

The words echoed inside of him. This. Much. Pain.

_Sincerely,_

_ Dr. Brennan_

"I found it!" Parker's high pitched exclamation of delight made Booth long for the days when his voice would break. Booth quickly checked his watch. It had taken about 2 minutes to read the letter. He had about 2 more to read the next and thirty seconds to run through the shower. Plausible.

There was pounding of feet. Booth ignored them as he flipped the letter over.

The thundering went past his door.

He set Zack's letter on the sink's lip.

The door to his bedroom pinged against the wall.

He slid his thumb along the edge of the last letter. The unsealed enveloped parted like butter.

Brennan was speaking, talking. Reading to his son. Parker was calling her name.

Booth was unfolding the letter, shaking out the creases.

There was a pounding on the door.

He looked up without reading the salutation. The date, however, was two days before their case in Kentucky. Last letter indeed.

"Booth!" she was screeching. Booth didn't comprehend it. He quickly glanced down at the salutation. Simultaneously the door flew inwards, hitting his ankle in the tiny bathroom and propelling him from the toilet backwards into the running shower. He cracked his head against the rim of the tub.

_Dear Booth_ swam before his eyes as did her all consuming enraged figure looming in the doorway. Her figure weaved between the words as the ink ran down his thigh, the paper saturating, obliterating her heartfelt concession as she opened her mouth to scream.

The letter was addressed to him.


	21. Stand Up When It's All Crashing Down

**Be amazed; an immediate update. FEEL BAD FOR BOOTH. He did a terrible thing...but he did it out of love?**

* * *

"Bones!" he yelped again, ripping the paper off his leg. He tried, at least. The ink had stained into his skin, immutable admission of what he had done. The remaining paper had disintegrated into a stringy, pulpy mess that ripped into great, gaping holes as he shoved it to the bottom of the tub. His left hand fumbled for the faucet as his right tried to support his weight enough to get off of the shower curtain.

"Booth! I…I…" she seemed unable to speak, which to him was a blessing in and of itself. He managed to stop the cascade and heave himself up to his feet, very aware that he was barely clad, and what he was wearing was plastered to his thighs. He stood in front of her, dripping into the silence that echoed with her enraged snorts as she groped both literally with her fingers and for words to express her fury. But her face told him what she was really trying to say: how to vocalize her betrayal. His heart hit the floor.

"I…" he stuttered and for a moment it seemed as if they would both smile and break the smoldering tension, realizing they were both stammering the same words. He tried again.

"It was…an accident?" It came out in the questioning tone Parker always employed when he was in trouble. His first line seemed to sink into the lake now between them, swimming with secrets and tears shed on both sides but separating them in swirling solidarity. She latched onto it like a fish rising hungrily to bait, but she went farther, her devastated features sucking him in more than the indrawn breath she sucked from the air.

"You didn't…" she choked. He heard the question anyway.

"The night we left for Kentucky; I…I dropped my keycard in the box…it broke when I tried to shake it out…it was...an accident?" He was literally whimpering.

"You didn't _read_…" she gagged. It was only then he saw what she held in one of her hands. The letter to Sully that had been so carefully yet carelessly tucked between the pages of his son's bedtime story. She wanted the denial; she wanted to be able to refute him, to rage at him, to catch him lying. He very carefully nodded his head.

"But you _knew_," she heaved, barely able to form words, shaking so hard he thought she was going to slip on the slick floors from the spilled water. He reached for her.

"_Don't_ touch me!" she spat and there was venom now, gaining speed and hurt, making the words come easier.

"I…" he managed. He reflected how much easier it seemed in the movies, where everyone knew exactly what they wanted to say and how so perfectly to execute their eloquence. In reality, he was full to the brim with explanations but he only had one tiny hole for a mouth for them to funnel through. Currently they were bottlenecked. His words, his apologies, his brilliant ability to smooth things over was warring inside of him, trying to come out all at once. He cleared his throat.

"I…I'm so sorry... it just…happened." And it was the worst thing he could have said.

"It just _happened_?" she stormed. He realized the same thing was happening to her. Unable to comprehend, unable to process, unable to speak. She was latching onto the lines he was throwing weakly out and attacking him for that. "It just _happened?_ You just happened to read every single letter for three weeks? You just happened to read what is for all intents and purposes…my DIARY? You just _happenend_ to be reading one last night, texting me goodnight out of _guilt_ as I searched frantically for the box?" Her face spasmed and her attack changed like lightning, too fast to express her real frustration. "Where is the box?"

"Angela has it," he said weakly. Also dead wrong thing to say. If there was a chart ranking all the worst things he could have said, he was working his way down the winners.

"You gave it to _Angela! She KNOWS?"_

"No!" he hurried into her monologued diatribe. "She didn't know what was in it; I smashed it, that's all she knows."

"You SMASHED IT?" she bellowed.

"You were showering! I was scared; I didn't know what it was!"

"So you just _took them?"_ The letters. The pages of her life.

"I was going to put them back!" he screeched and realized he was yelling too in both panic and defensiveness, knowing that he was completely in the wrong but his past as an abused kid rearing its ugly head. He hated being screamed at.

"BUT YOU DIDN'T," she roared. "That's what's so…so…_awful…_so_ wrong…_so…" she let out a strangled scream that ended in half vocalized curses.

And right then the worst possible thing that could happen, happened.

The doorbell rang.

"Dad?" came a tiny, terrified, shrunken voice that matched a huddled shaking figure that was slunk up against the doorframe. "Dad, that's Mom."

"Oh shit," cursed Booth, brushing rudely past Brennan, realizing he had gotten her wet by her half articulated shriek.

"Rebecca," Booth said by way of snarled salutation. She took in his sopping half nude appearance with her immediate fiery temper.

"Seeley, what on _earth_," she began and then caught sight of a shuddering, furious and dripping Brennan, so different than their last shower together. "Oh. My. GOD," she snapped. "This is un_acceptable_. Seeley Joseph Booth what on _earth." _She snapped at Parker like a recalcitrant dog. "Parker get your stuff. Let's _go_." She rounded on Booth with a glare and a snarl.

"You can kiss your rights to Parker _goodbye_. If I had known what on…what you…oh my _God_ Seeley."

"Before you get into a full blown scream fight," said Brennan suddenly, her voice as clear as glass and cold as ice as she rudely brushed past him and shoved Rebecca cruelly out of her way. Rebecca's mouth opened and her own hands came up defensively; Booth actually thought they would fight before Brennan continued.

"Let me get away from him. I never _ever_ want to see him again. And think what you will Rebecca," spat Brennan. "But this man is an _excellent_ father." Booth lifted his chin in disbelief, tears pricking suddenly. "But that's all he is; he isn't good at anything else. If you take Parker away…well then I guess then he'd be alone because I am never coming back."

"Bones!" Booth called desperately, hand slapping the edge of the doorframe. Parker stood sandwiched between him and Rebecca- who wasn't backing down. Parker whimpered, caught literally between his parents as he always was. Booth noted absently that clutched in one of his small hands was _Dracula_. He hadn't expected her to turn around but she u-turned with such a fury that it scared him. Her eyes flashed and he almost saw her hands lash out over Rebecca.

"_Don't_ call me Bones," she hissed; her rage again was choking everything she wanted to say. He could tell.

"What about your letters?" he gestured weakly, their secrets out at last.

"What about them?" she said coldly, her eyes dead. "You've opened them all. Now they're yours. I don't care."

"But," he almost whispered but she was already gone.

"Seeley-" began Rebecca at a full throated roar. Booth felt his temper snap. He roughly hustled his ex out of the threshold.

"I don't _care_," he yelled right back and slammed the door in her face. Through the wood he heard Parker burst into tears. He punched the door, just once, but then yanked it back open, three feet down the hall chasing his son. Rebecca had slung him up on her hip even though he was too old for the pose. His glaring red eyes peeped over her shoulder as he sobbed.

"Parker!" Booth called desperately, fingers outstretched in a parody of any romantic comedy.

"I don't care!" Parker echoed, his voice ripping through the air, which seemed much too thin in the hallway. He was sobbing and his tone was rife with hate. Booth swallowed, wilting as Rebecca started down the stairs.

* * *

He hadn't known what to do afterwards. It was Sunday. He had no beer except the one that was still sitting on the counter from last night. The Lab no doubt already knew of his treachery. Booth didn't know how he had come to be on the hunting range, but he had brought his own sniper rifle, paid the man and hiked to the top of a small bluff, obviously man-made in the rough country of flatland Virginia, not too far from DC. He jumped when a tree branch cracked, splintered and fell as he watched through his eyepiece. He had been shooting bullets in the same place at the same tree for an hour, trying to bore through the wood.

Booth didn't believe in shooting animals; silly since he had no problems shooting people. He sat stupefied in the middle of the country, just now aware of the dozen bug bites all down his neck, his sweat soaked shirt and his scratched up arms from brushing through the nettled woods.

Now that he had accomplished the asinine task of slowly splintering a branch from a tree with long range bullets from 150 feet away, he felt completely empty. He felt the same lethargy that he prompted him to drive out here. He wasn't even sure what he was wearing. He checked; at least he had pants on.

He was hungry, he decided.

His car took him to the diner before he had become aware enough to pack up his sniper scope. The waitress he always tipped extra flinched when he came in. Booth realized he was still holding his sniper rifle case in one hand and stank like the putrefaction of decaying flowers. He had knelt in a clump of dying wildflowers in the late June heat as he had bored his guilt into an innocent tree.

He threw his gun case down under a barstool at the end of the bar and headed to the bathroom. His reflection was horrifying. He would have been more shocked or upset if he was capable of feeling anything at all. He knew psychologically speaking he was going through the shock and numbness part of the grieving process. He didn't want to think about what Brennan said. That she was never coming back. She was never speaking to him again. His career at the Jeffersonian was over. He no longer had friends.

He deserved it.

He quickly, with the long practice of Iraq, wiped down his face, neck and arms in some semblance of cleanliness, though his body odor would give him away in a five foot radius.

He had already bulldozed through a burger, two hot dogs, a plate of French fries, a grilled cheese and was sucking down a chocolate malt next to a half crumbled piece of pie before he realized that the guy next to him on the barstool was actually talking to _him._ He kept slurping down the chocolate; ironically enough he stress ate more than Rebecca. He wondered how long the man had been talking, or what he was talking about or if his own voracious eating had been taken for conversation or agreement. He turned his stiff neck – when had he knotted it? – hunting, his mind answered – just the slightest to the left in order to see who the crap was bothering him.

"Jared," he said in dulled surprise.

"Yeah man, come on, let's go."

"What?" Booth screwed a little finger into his ear in confusion. He knew it was rude but he didn't give a damn. His tongue felt thick, numbed from the ice cream. He felt like he had been dropped into the middle of a conversation. "Where are we going?"

"Let's go home."

"I don't wanna," Booth muttered childishly.

"Look man, Padme's out in the car. Like I said, I only stopped in because she was sure she saw you. When I saw how much you were eating, I knew we had to take you home. Come on."

"What?"

"Come on, it's ok. You always ate that much when we were kids."

"I…" Booth couldn't think of an appropriate response. "I…haven't paid," he said stupidly.

"I got this one, it's ok," Jared said, helping him to his feet, hand on his back. By Jared's wince it was still soaked in sweat.

"My gun," Booth grunted and hauled up the case. Jared's eyes got wider and his grip on his arm got tighter as he propelled him towards the door.

"Sure man."

Jared's flashy silver Audi was a trade in for his bike and a huge dent in his money from his job at the State Department. Booth tried to rack his brain for where Jared worked now but couldn't remember. He did remember Padme.

"Hey Seeley," she chorused. He slouched in the back like a suspect being shoved in a cop car, clutching his rifle case like a briefcase or a small lapdog.

"Padme," he grunted.

"Jared says you're upset."

"Whatever," he grunted and thunked his head against the glass. Jared slung into the low seat cheerfully and kissed his fiancée quickly before pulling into traffic.

"See? Dead giveaway. Seeley always became more monosyllabic when he was mad or sad; he also tended to act more like a caveman in his habits. Eating more. Speaking less. Stinking." He laughed and waved a hand in front of his nose. Booth ignored him. They passed his building. It then dawned on him that Jared was taking him to his own apartment, to watch out for him. His throat tightened in gratitude and pity. He glared up balefully at his bedroom window as they passed.

"Can we stop?" he asked suddenly. Jared pulled up without a word. Booth was gone for exactly four minutes and twenty eight seconds. He came out without any clothes, without any toiletries, and one giant handle of scotch.

* * *

"It's been three days," whispered Padme. Booth wanted to groan. Just because he didn't speak didn't mean he didn't hear. He wondered if this was what Brennan felt like in high school: ignored. Invisible. Except he knew he was visible. Too visible.

Three days? It couldn't have been three days. He belched coarsely and rattled the almost empty bottle of scotch on his chest. He fixed his stinging eyes on the television. He was almost done with season three of a new tv show damn it, couldn't they talk _away_ from the set?

"I don't even think he's slept," Padme continued in a low voice.

"That's impossible," Jared argued and then with a shrug in his voice Booth couldn't care enough to see if he matched in gesture, "I've seen him sleeping. Plus, Seeley can sleep with his eyes open."

"Jared I'm _really _worried. He hasn't gotten up off the couch since the first day. Plus, he's really starting to stink."

"He has," Jared argued. "It's not like he just sat there and peed himself."

"But he doesn't _do_ anything," Padme insisted, panic lacing her voice. "He hardly sleeps. He just _eats_ everything and sits there…it's a miracle he's not three hundred pounds."

"Just let him be a guy," Jared said dismissively. "He'll get over it. It's his way."

"_No_," Padme emphasized and then dropped her voice softer. "No. He's catatonic. Jared I think we should call someone."

"Like who?"

"What about his partner? Temperance?"

"NO!" Booth was halfway across the room before he realized he had just eaten an entire family sized bag of cheeto puffs and felt sick. "Don't call her. Don't call _anyone_."

"You haven't been to work in two days," Padme protested. _Or showered_ hung in the air.

"I'll leave," Booth said suddenly, realizing that was probably bothering her.

"NO, Seeley, we're family. We're really worried about you. What happened?" She almost grabbed his arms but seemed to think better of it.

"Seeley, just go sit back down," Jared punched him on the shoulder like a good brother. He was just tipsy enough that he staggered. He knew, way back in his mind, that he was a _mess_. He had just enough sense to call in and feign sick to Sweets and his director. He wondered if Bones had gone in but the thought was too painful to continue past her name. It left a mental lump in his throat. She undoubtedly had. His treachery of her trust was routine enough in her life.

He took another swig of scotch to drown out that thought. He sat bolt upright, a thought sneaking suspiciously, cruelly through his mind. He was his father. He had turned, in three short days, into a man who watched television incessantly, nursing a drink and short tempered enough to consider thrashing his sons. Booth lurched off the couch and strode across the room and threw the almost empty bottle in the trash.

"Thanks," he grunted. In his present state the one word meant _thanks for everything, you've been great at putting up with me. Sorry I stink and got crumbs between the sticky keys of your remote control. _

Walking down the stairs, almost jogging to avoid Jared and Padme, he realized he had no way to get home or go anywhere.

He heard Jared call something after him. Something about a ride.

He hadn't realized it was storming inside with the volume turned up. Walking fast into the drenching rain wasn't so much a wakeup call as a forcible reminder of being stuck in that shower, Bones' scared, wounded and betrayed face screwing up the courage to finally get rid of the one person who she had ever trusted more than anyone else. His numbness had started and ended in a shower.

He began to cry. Like a baby.

He wasn't sober enough to be ashamed, but he _was_ sober enough to not wander into traffic. He jogged instead, liking the burning feeling in his lungs, as if he was slowly roasting from the inside out. He stopped on a street corner. He had no idea where he was. He stunk. He was wearing the same clothes as three days ago. He had forgotten his rifle at Jared's. He was lost. And a little drunk.

He sat down on the curb next to a stop sign and cried, folding his face into his hands. He wasn't sure how long he sat there, but it was long enough to realize that there wasn't a single dry spot on his jeans or his shirt. He looked up at the impatient honk. A car sat idling. It was black. One of the doors was open. All of a sudden he felt an impatient tugging under on of his arms.

"Get in," Cam snarled. "Jesus you're a mess."


	22. Stand Through the Pain, You Won't Drown

**It's short, but better than waiting for the knock out, drag out chapter that's worming it's way to the surface.**

* * *

"Ugh, you stink, get in the shower." Cam's bossiness was the only thing propelling his leaden feet forward into the shower. She forced him in the tub and turned on the handle. The spray of water against his shivering, wet, plastered skin was refreshing in the way only hot water can be. He let his teeth chatter and obediently held his hands above his head as she stripped off his t-shirt. She stood, cocking a hip out, and put her hand on it. She pursed her lips, holding the dripping shirt to one side and draping it over the toilet.

"I assume you remember how to shower?" Her question was scathing.

"I don't have any clothes," he mumbled defensively.

"Just trust me okay? Shower."

"I'm tired."

"And I'm sure you haven't slept by the looks of you for the past month. But if you want a bed, you have to be clean enough to make it between the sheets."

"You haven't changed," he groaned. She threw his wet t-shirt back at his head for the asinine remark about their relationship.

"Thank God you have. Jesus, you haven't looked this bad since college. What happened? Jared just said he found you at the diner looking like shit."

"Go 'way," mumbled Booth, and slumped against the shower wall.

"You've been drinking," she observed disgustedly.

"Take some midol," he grumbled. One eyebrow rose gracefully.

"Well look who has been taking jackass pills."

"I might throw up on you," Booth mumbled. Cam yanked the shower curtain closed. Booth managed to struggle out of his jeans and boxers, even though they were sodden, and toss them on the floor. He jumped in startlement when the curtain was thrown back open and Cam shoved a trashcan into his arms.

"Go to town," she shrugged. "I'll be back in an hour. Food is in the fridge if you're hungry. Try not to do anything stupid like slip and die."

"Um…k…" Booth swallowed, shielding his nakedness with the trashcan. She glanced down, just once, and smiled, clicking her tongue as she ripped the curtain closed again.

Booth felt himself sink down under the spray. His numbness of the past three days was gone, unfortunately replaced with mind jarring agony. His head throbbed fit to bursting, he felt nauseous, and those were just his physical symptoms. Guilt was wrapped so tightly around his neck, he was surprised he wasn't choking.

He hung his head in the trashcan, smelling the lemony yellow lining as it slowly filled up with the water dripping off his shoulders and hair. He didn't have to throw up. He shoved it outside and grabbed blindly for the soap.

After he scrubbed himself three times, he flipped the handle off. His clothes were still in a sodden heap on the floor, but bless Cam she had left some aspirin and a diet coke on the sink counter. He snatched it up, not bothering with a towel and drank half of it down in one go before turning to hang his clothes back up.

He had just toweled off to find some clothes and wrapped the white, almost too-small towel around his waist when the door was yanked open.

"Uncle Booth!"

Booth flushed a brilliant crimson he hadn't been able to bring himself to when Cam had seen him naked. She was used to it.

"Michelle!" he stuttered.

"What are you doing here?" she stammered right back, looking away, even though he was wearing a towel. Booth crossed his arms up under his armpits, trying to shield as much of his bare chest as he could.

"Cam…" he chattered, his teeth clicking together from the sudden downdraft of air conditioning. "She…let me crash here for…" he was going to complete the sentence "for the morning" but wasn't actually sure what time it was. Michelle, happily enough, took his awkward half assed explanation at face value, eager to scurry away.

"I was just looking for this soap Cam uses but…I…um…don't…need it…" she turned and fled.

Booth wandered back into Cam's tastefully decorated bedroom and sank down at the foot of the bed, trying not to drip dry on her comforter. He noticed pen and paper on her nightstand by a home phone. He scooted over until he was within grasping distance – barely – of the pen.

He liked making lists. It was one of the few useful things he had picked up from _her_. Her name was too hard to think.

1.

Booth chewed on the edge of the pen cap, not feeling the least bit of remorse that it wasn't his pen and completely unwitting that Cam did the same thing. _Where to start…_His list of amends was excruciatingly long. One sprang to mind that was disconnected – mostly – from the entire sordid affair.

Parker.

1) Call Parker.

2) Fix life.

Easier said than done. The first bullet was both easy and hard. He had Rebecca's number memorized from a time when cell phones were rare and didn't have phone books. The hard part would be getting a word in…or being able to bring himself to call at all. The phone rang so long in his hand he was just moving it away from his ear in dashed futile hopes when she snatched it up, obviously cautious about the unrecognizable caller id.

"Hello?" Her voice was professional. She wasn't.

"Rebecca? It's me." He was amazed to hear how much he sounded like a whipped dog. It reminded him forcibly of another time when he had gotten locked in the lab over Christmas and he had begged her to let him see Parker at all.

"Seeley?" Her voice was suspicious, as if he was prank calling her.

"I'm at Cam's," his answer was to the incredulity pulsating over the line.

"Why?"

"Bones and I had a fight."

"I figured." Her voice was dry and sour. He could _hear_ the indrawn breath of rage before she blew. To his surprise she swallowed audibly and there was a rustling noise.

"Do you want to talk to Daddy?" she asked in a tinny background. Booth felt his heart start to pump faster.

"Not right now."

"Please bud," whispered Booth into the line. He wasn't sure if Parker or Rebecca could hear him but he was too ashamed to lift his voice to a more audible decibel.

"Ok." He was using his best surly tone. There was a loud clacking sound, shuffling feet and a little boy's heavy breathing over the line. "Hello?"

"Parker!" Booth almost shouted his name in relief. "How are you, bud?"

"My lip hurts."

"Your lip? What's wrong?"

"It's broken."

"Broken?"

"Cut."

"Cut? How'd it get cut?" Booth expected his son to say something along the lines of playing baseball, so the baseball bat to the gut at his answer was a total shock.

"You hit me."

"I _what?"_

"Yeah. When you were fighting with Bones."

"WHAT?" Booth bellowed. The clanging sound repeated itself and he knew before the voice came back he was talking to Rebecca again.

"Parker split his lip," she said waspishly, "I thought you knew."

"_What_? NO! How? I didn't see…"

"He was hiding it behind his book; he didn't want me to see it when I walked in, but I noticed right away."

"Is that why you were mad?" Booth asked, understanding dawning. Rebecca's reaction had been a bit…visceral for her intended perception of his partner's relationship.

"Why on earth did you think I was angry?" she snapped, and he could hear her walking away from Parker - whose pounding little feet came to a halt in front of a loud background television. "I come up and my son is bleeding and scared. I could hear the yelling from the stairs."

"I thought…Bones…and I wasn't…clothed…"

"Don't be ridiculous Seeley." Her disdain was both refreshing and insulting. She had a real knack for a hand full of knuckles; all sorts of backhanded compliments wormed past her teeth. Booth brushed it off, concern knotting his fingers into his short, bristly hair. He puffed out a held breath from his cheeks.

"Is Parker all right?"

"He was upset because he says you pushed him."

"I what?" Booth said, unable to yell past the strain in his throat.

"Knocked him down in the doorway when you were fighting with Bones. Temperance. You know who I mean."

"I did?" Booth felt dizzy. Dazed. It had all happened so fast. How many times had he heard a murderer say that? Rebecca rolled on regardless to his emotional turmoil.

"He said you didn't even notice him and he was trying to stop you two - standing in the doorway, yelling…" Her tone changed lightning fast from delicate reprimand to outrage. "Seeley this is so _completely_ unacceptable. An accident I understand, but when your knock out drag out couples issues physically hurt our _son_ –" Booth opened his mouth to refute all sorts of wrong with her accusation but all that could force its way out was his overwhelming heart crushing concern for Parker.

"Oh my God, I had no idea. Can I talk to him? Just a little more?"

"Not a good idea right now."

"When can I…" Booth couldn't finish the question, too petrified of the answer. It was well within Rebecca's rights to revoke visitation, especially now that her son had been physically abused. Booth felt sick again; he wondered where he had left that lemon lined trashcan. There was a noisy huffing sigh on the other end of the line and Booth dared the tiniest drop of hope. Rebecca only hissed when she was cooling down, like a hot frying pan hitting cold water.

"I lost my temper, seeing the blood. He's fine, no stitches, just a cut from a doorframe. He'll be okay, Seeley. Temperance was right. You are an excellent father. I just…lost my head. Can I call you tomorrow?"

"Sure," whispered Booth. The phone clicked in his hand but Booth still had it frozen in a rictus parody of love to his face. The numbers were indenting into his cheek. Booth felt as if he were being hollowed out, every bit of his life imploding like a string of grenades. He fell back onto the bed, still frozen to stare at the fan as the monster perched on top of his chest, eating him inside and out. It was a foul creature, one that could sneak inside the soul and slowly kill a man.

Guilt.


	23. And One Day What's Lost Will Be Found

"Your clothes," she said in a much more subdued voice. Booth grunted in surprise as he felt denim smack his abdomen; he couldn't see her hovering somewhere beyond the edges of his vision. He wasn't sure if he had been staring entranced at the ceiling fan or had fallen asleep. He was too embarrassed to ask. He was losing his mind.

He sat slowly up, realizing he was sore from lying prone and stiff on a couch for three days. Or was it from crouching endlessly, shooting at a tree? Was it even his fall in the shower? He shut his mind off like a leaky faucet, the memories still too stark. He swallowed a disgusting lump in his throat.

But, like a leaky faucet, some drips got through. Her face. Her shaking hands. A glint of gold that was Parker's curls in the doorway. Her lips, so lusciously red, suddenly white with anger. He focused sharply on Cam as he pulled his jeans on underneath his towel.

She wasn't speaking. That wasn't like Cam.

She sighed noisily and threaded her fingers together in front of her face the way she did when she was about to ream another administrator. She wasn't angry though…her body language didn't say that. It just said…sad.

"I brought you something else," she said quietly. Booth stiffened, half expecting Brennan to walk through the door. His face must have been devastatingly hopeful for she shook her head quickly, already too fast on his train of thought.

"It's in the other room. With some lunch." Booth covertly scanned the room for an alarm clock. It was two in the afternoon.

"What are you doing home from work?" he asked thickly, confused.

"It's fourth of July," she told him simply. He squinted at her.

"What?"

"Fourth of July weekend. No work today."

"But…" Booth said thickly. "I called…I thought…"

"That's why Michelle isn't at school."

"It's raining," Booth said stupidly.

"It was this morning when I picked you up, but not anymore," Cam informed him.

"How long were you gone?" His tongue was thick again, swollen up in his mouth as he struggled to unfold his shirt that was all bunched up against the not quite dry skin of his back. It was right above where his fingers could reach. He struggled briefly while Cam watched him, her face still strangely…pitying? –before she came over in exasperation and with surprisingly gentle dexterous fingers unwound the cotton behind him, leaning over his shoulder. Booth didn't mean to, but he let his head thunk against her collarbone in despair.

Immediately he felt her stiffen. He jerked his head up in apology, wondering when it had become hard to talk to his best friend. One of his best friends. His only friend, at this point. And not for long.

"Let's go into the kitchen," she said instead of any explanation as she slowly pushed herself with two hands to his shoulders and stood back up. Booth swallowed, his thick tongue swallowing down his throat, the wad of guilt getting lodged now in his airway, forcing him to open his mouth to breathe. He wanted to lean against Cam and maybe growl, or cry, or scream, or say sorry, hoping against hope she could be a dry run for Brennan.

But that's all she had ever been, and that wasn't fair to her at all.

He levered himself heavily off of her springy bed, scooping up his towel against her protestations to leave it out of long force of polite habit. He hung it on a peg where it didn't belong as he followed her down the hall, carpeted nicely and accented so differently than his own home, with pictures of Michelle graduating and old pictures of when Andrew, Michelle and Cam had all been a family. He realized the pictures on his wall were of strangers on baseball cards. It struck him suddenly, that he didn't have a single picture in his possession with the friend in front of him, or with Bones, or with the lab, except for the newspaper cutout from so long ago. It made him more ashamed than ever.

He froze, a deer in the headlights, upon seeing her kitchen table under the simple chandelier. Her entire table was covered with Brennan's letters, laid out, arrayed in a small phalanx of tiny soldiers, their blank white faces glaring with untold secrets concealed by archaic, now meaningless, titles.

"Where…" he stuttered. "Where did you get those?"

"I had to get you underwear," she said in a low, not quite accusing, voice. "The drawer was wide open and the letters strewn around the room."

"Brennan," Booth said her name in a tight admission of his guilt at her discovery. He swallowed, wiping his mouth with the back of a forearm to gain time to think and to hide his face. "Why…why did you bring them here?" Another horrible thought struck him to the core. "You didn't…you didn't _read_ them?"

"Just this one." Cam carefully handed him Zack's letter, which he knew had been left unfolded on the sink. "There was another in the tub, shredded beyond repair."

"You read this?" Booth's whisper was half terrified, as if it was his own diary, and half angry, as if he had any right to judge. But she had encroached on Brennan's…privacy, thoughts…everything. It wasn't the same as what he had done. He had made a pact with Brennan – a tacit, delusional pact… Booth swallowed.

"So you know what they are."

"I didn't even finish this one," Cam snapped, her cool demeanor finally fracturing just the slightest for a fraction of a second to show her frazzled, scandalized interior. She sighed, and folded her arms even more tightly up against her chest, one of her favorite positions that left tiny bruises up against her ribcage, if Booth remembered correctly.

"As soon," she started, her voice shaking the slightest bit in anger and perhaps disgust, "as soon as I knew what it was…what it was saying…what it meant to _her_…I couldn't read _that_. I stopped. I dropped it. And then I found the others. _All of them_. And you know what else I gleaned from being a cop? _They had all been opened. Every. Last. One._ And you were hiding them in your underwear drawer. _What-_how-could-" she was suffering from the same choking rage, indignation, disbelief that had strangled both Brennan and Booth in their first face off.

Booth sighed like an enraged horse through his nose. "Did you read them all?" Cam laughed a sour little bark, as if his only response was typical.

"What do you think I am, some kind of dumbass? As soon as I realized what I was reading, I put it back. So here they are."

"I read them." His confession was quiet, quiet enough to sink into the carpet and the silence was long enough for Booth to notice the tarmac outside weaving in the heat waves rising from the road.

"No shit Sherlock," Cam finally sighed.

"She found out," he confessed again. She tightened her hair in its tiny pathetic ponytail – her new haircut not giving her the same severity she was used to controlling – viciously.

"She was bound to." Booth swallowed and stared at the letters. To his embarrassment they all began swimming in his vision.

"She's never speaking to me again." He realized he was about to cry.

"How much have you had to drink?" Cam asked wryly. Booth pouted.

"A little." He sniffled. She pursed her lips and chewed the inside of one for a long moment pensively.

"You want waffles?" Booth yanked his head up in shock.

"You're not mad?"

"Oh," she said cheerfully, "I'm furious. I called Angela. But she already knew." Booth felt his cheek crack with the pressure from grinding his teeth together so tightly.

"What?" Cam swirled around, her tight jeans flattering with the almost goofy looking crop top she had hoarded secretly since the late eighties.

"Blueberries or chocolate chips?" she asked sweetly.

"What?" Booth was still frozen.

"Simple question."

"Why-why would..."

"Because she is a moderator between the two of you and she needed to know. Especially since this will affect all of our lives and careers."

"Brennan is never speaking to me again." Booth's admission sounded hollow in his ears. It was the truth and they both knew it, regardless of Cam's quick pouring of water into the instant mix.

"She has her own prerogative," she said. Her manner was quiet. Booth realized suddenly that Cam was indifferent to his plight. She thought he deserved it.

"Chocolate chips," he choked. She nodded without looking at him.

"Good choice."

* * *

Booth had almost no appetite, both from the sick admission of guilt and glutting for days, and the terror he felt as Angela stormed closer, almost as terrifying as any general coming to ream him for loss of his platoon.

The cars outside kept him jumping, his sniper senses blaring as each one breezed past. Booth knew what Angela's minivan's transmission sounded like without looking out the window.

However, each car that roared steadily down the quiet neighborhood had his teeth on edge and his skin crawling. He would hold his breath until each one passed, the Doppler Effect soothing in its slow crawl of sound waves past his vantage point in the front of the house next to the windows. He knew it would happen but prayed it wouldn't; the eventual sound of a larger motor puttered to an idle, the slow slick sound of tires turning on pavement, the dark rumble of axles struggling with suspension against cobblestones, and finally the ominous silence and door dings of a car being turned off.

When the car door slammed shut, Booth thought he would faint.

Cam left the table with her usual grace to answer the door. Michelle flitted into the room and then out again to grab waffles. Another set sat waiting and covered for Angela.

The fractured reflection of Angela loomed as she walked up the driveway and Booth let his face fall into his fingers in defeat. Michelle wandered pensively back in. Cam had let herself out to quietly confer for a moment on the doorstep, prolonging the agonizing wait before the torture even began.

"Are you okay Uncle Booth?" Michelle asked tentatively.

"I'm in trouble," he said glumly. "And if I were you, this would be a great time to go shopping. Or move to Canada."

"To get out of the house?" she finished wryly. "I figured that out as soon as I smelled waffles. Cam only cooks straight starch when she's upset."

"Smart girl," Cam said approvingly from behind her. "Booth is right, why don't you go to Bekah's?"

"Yeah, sure," Michelle said, curiosity scrawled across her face as she passed yet another person in her home. "Hello Aunt Angela."

Booth couldn't yet see Angela behind Cam but he heard her politely greet Michelle. She sat gracefully down at the table. Booth had expected her to ream him, coming in kicking and screaming, take out his gun and slowly blow his fingers off.

Her quiet composure was much, much worse.

She pulled the plate of waffles to her and slowly began to pour syrup and eat. Cam seemed in no hurry either, fluttering about Angela's bulky and cumbersome pregnancy and offering her orange juice and assorted fruit she certainly had not offered Booth.

It was only when Michelle came clumping back down the stairs did Booth become aware that Angela was carefully not looking at him because they were both waiting for Michelle to leave.

The door slamming shut again had Booth wincing a second time. It was like waiting for Angela all over again but backwards as the tires of Michelle's car slowly backed down the sloped driveway and into the street. Booth almost let out an audible sigh of relief hearing her pull into forward gear and drive away.

The waiting was over.

So he thought.

He turned his eyes up to Angela expectantly, the way a dog waits patiently for a kick after constant abuse with a tired weariness that is more heartbreaking than the cries. Booth realized the metaphor wasn't actually a metaphor at all. He had been that dog, many, many times. He had felt this way many, many times. The bile, the fear, the hate, and the shame, and the terror was all familiar. It was just a very different kind of thrashing with a bite instead of a belt.

"Interesting," Angela said quietly, staring across the table, not at Booth, but at his plate. It was the first word she had spoken in the kitchen.

Booth didn't say 'what' as unlikely as it would have been to get his throat working, but he did turn his attention to Angela's face. That satisfied her, to know he was at least paying attention. She continued.

"Brennan hasn't eaten hardly anything in days either."

"Have you been staying with her?" Booth's voice was hoarse and quiet with rough concern.

"Yes." Angela's answer was bitten off as if she was swallowing down a whole slew of things she wanted to say instead. Booth let his head hang a little lower, avoiding eye contact. "I've been looking for you for days. You haven't been home. I didn't know you were staying with Cam."

"Just now," Booth said quickly, interrupting Cam's open mouth. "Jared found me."

Angela's eyes narrowed. "He _found_ you?" Her inflection matched his in the fact she was querying about his diction.

"In the diner. I've been staying with him for the last few days." Booth wasn't even sure how many days it had been. Padme could have been shortening the length for his sake.

"Why aren't you there now?"

"I think I was annoying Padme."

"Scaring her, more like," Cam finally put in. "She called, not Jared. She thought you were going to kill yourself."

"Right," snorted Booth. The unlikeliness of that was almost ironic. After all Brennan had been through…taking one more thing from her was unreasonable, ridiculous. How could they not see that? It wasn't even his life anymore to keep.

"If you _ever_ do that to Brennan," Angela said with a deadly quiet. "I guarantee I will make sure you end up in hell."

"I wouldn't." Her eyes were dark with hate.

"I _wouldn't_," he assured her. "Plus, I'm Catholic."

"Like that's ever stopped you," Cam muttered. Her eyes were dark too, but with real concern.

"When my mom died," Booth blurted, and realized both of their attention had fixed upon them in genuine, ravenous interest. He never volunteered about himself. He wished he could take it back but their faces gave him just the spark of hope he needed to face the confrontation. "I didn't move for a week. I just watched tv and ate in my room. I locked the door and just…lay there. I didn't even see Jared. The day I got up was the day of her funeral. After that…well..." He couldn't even finish.

They didn't press him. They were too busy digesting the longest speech he had ever given about his past. It was a whole five sentences.

"How," he swallowed, but the rest of his throat was so swollen he couldn't spit out any more words. Angela understood.

"She's doing really badly. At first…she scared me. She cried…raged…a lot…but now…now she's gone all cold. Silent. I'll be lucky to get three words out of her in an hour and they'll just be 'yes,' 'no,' and 'dunno.' It's really like…someone died."

"Like I died," Booth finished softly, his worst fears confirmed. He thunked his head on the table. Every single fear: fear of trust, of being unlovable, of everyone leaving, of letting people in, of hero worship, or friendship - he couldn't have done a more royal mind fuck if he had carefully planned it out. Evidently Angela thought so as well, for her voice was no longer concerned as she spat out her next question.

"The box-"

"It held the letters."

"Why, _why_ didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want her to know."

"She would have known."

"Not now."

"Better now than later."

"What?" Of all the things he had expected it wasn't that.

"What if you two…you know…eventually ended up together, and she discovered it then?"

"We were."

"Were what?"

"Together."

"Sexually."

"It would have happened."

"I know," Angela snapped irritably. She gestured at Cam. "We all know."

"Will she be okay?"

"No!" Angela finally snapped. "No! She'll never be okay again! Don't you _get_ that? She's got trust issues a mile high and you just made it a mile more. She won't even _look_ at me. It's like she expects me to eat her, or leave her, or…I don't _know_. Don't you know what you've _done?_"

"Yes," Booth whispered. He stared at his scarred, interlocking hands. "I know." He knew more than Angela, more than he was sure he should know.

"_What_ was in those letters?" Angela snapped. "What on earth could be so goddamn horrible?"

"I…" Booth started, but stopped. He stood up, over their enraged protests, and moved quickly to the counter, his fingers dexterously combing through them. Brennan had said the letters were his, to do with as he wished.

He knew, finally, like a stroke form the hand of God's paintbrush, what he had to do now. It was so unflinchingly obvious he felt like a dumbass for not seeing it before. It was the whole reason he had even read them, kept reading, knowing deep down what he would eventually have to do to make it right.

"_Seeley Booth_," snapped Cam. "Sit _down_."

"She wrote _this_," Booth said quietly, and the two's faces went into a blank kind of horror when he offered them their letters, one in each hand.

"We can't _read_ -" Angela choked.

"They're addressed to you," Booth said quietly. His voice seemed suddenly incapable of talking over a library murmur. He felt very, very old. Inflection, emotion, especially hot emotions like anger, or joy…seemed utterly beyond him. Now in his voice all that could be expressed was a quiet sadness, a tentative hope, a gentle remonstration, or a subtle cajoling.

"They…they're addressed to…us?" Cam fumbled. Booth nodded solemnly and leaned the last little bit forward and firmly placed the letters in each hand. Both of their fingers curled around the envelope of their own accord, just as his had. But their grip was fearful, cautious, whereas his had been desperate, wonderful, fierce and aching.

"What does this mean?" Angela asked him, frowning, shoving the title up under his nose. He hadn't noticed before it said "letter to an opposite." Angela scowled in envy at Cam's, which was addressed: "letter to a hero."

"Brennan addresses all her letters rather cryptically," Booth said wryly. "I opened the first one because it was addressed 'letter to a soldier.' I thought it was for me."

"Wasn't it?" Cam asked in astonishment.

"It was."

"What did it say?" Angela asked impatiently. Booth's face went paler; they both noticed it.

"It was the letter she wrote me after she thought I had been shot and killed. It was dated the day before my funeral."

"Oh my God," Cam muttered, immediately dropping her letter as if it were on fire.

"It was heartbreaking," Booth admitted. "It's why I read another."

"And another," Angela sighed with a sardonic edge to her voice.

"Yes." Booth's voice was pained, honest. He still had trouble speaking above a low rumble.

"I _can't_ read this," Cam protested, trying to hand it back to him. Booth took it, then tossed it carelessly over the waffles back in front of her.

"It's addressed and written to _you._ It was going to be mailed at some point. It's for you, Camille." Her face was ashen. She looked over in panic to Angela who was holding her letter in both hands, her face thoughtful. She caught Cam's glance.

"I will if you will."

"I can't believe it."

"It's addressed to _us_," Angela argued. She looked up at Booth. "Isn't it?"

"Yes."

"You're _sure_," Cam agonized. "You're _sure_ this is the right letter?"

"_Yes_," Booth said, a tad impatiently, waiting for them to open the letters. "I'm positive." It was beyond a need for them to share in his guilt; he knew now what he was. How to make it right. He was a postman of heartfelt paper airplanes.

With bated breath, Angela slid her finger into the loosely folded envelope flap. Cam swallowed and did the same. They were slightly out of synchronization, to Booth's annoyance, Cam a step behind the bold and blatantly curious Angela.

The envelopes hit the table only a fraction of a second after one another. Booth's chair scraped across the tile in concordance with the rattling of the letters being unfolded, one after another. Cam checked again that Angela was reading. Angela's eyes were voraciously tearing across the page, stopping in places, unfocusing, as Booth had done, to think, to dwell, to place the dates and times in order to set her frame of mind.

Cam's hesitation was lost in the wind with Brennan's opening paragraph. Subtle amusement flitted across her features, followed by a brief flash of hurt. Angela was veering between heartbreaking pity, tears and angry outrage. Booth found himself reading their faces side by side with the same tenacity he had kept in reading the letters themselves.

Angela finished first, her letter shorter, and Booth watched as she flipped to the back impatiently, found the one line scrawled there and her anger melt into aching sadness then back into impatience as she started over, rereading, skipping lines, her eyes flicking back and forth, up and down as her thumb traced the words up against the light and then smoothed the paper out as she pressed it down against the grain of the table, making sure she was reading each carefully inked word correctly.

Cam's eyes were swimming with tears. She was struggling to finish. She stood abruptly, her chair almost tipping backwards. She hardly noticed, one hand to her nose, her arm shielding the bottom half of her face as Booth had done not an hour ago. She walked away down the hall, not to her room but to anywhere but the table, too ashamed to have an audience to her pain.

Booth heard a door slam, and the more painful, heartbreaking sound of a tiny sob ripping out of his friend, quietly, smothered, as she finished her letter in private.

Angela was sitting stupefied, her letter resting quietly on her stomach. She stared off into space for a minute, for two. Cam's clock was shatteringly loud in the silence. Booth was breathless; he didn't want to break the spell. Thoughtfully, as if she was still in the trance Brennan had always cast over him with her written word, Angela walked dreamily into the kitchen. Booth didn't move, rooted to his chair like a tree trunk to the ground. She came back with more focus, printer paper and a pen in her hand. She sat down with a crash and opened the pen cap. That tiny sound popped the spell over Booth and he spoke quickly, urgently, his voice hoarse and too loud.

"What are you doing?"

She glared at him.

"What does it look like? I'm writing her a response."

"What?"

"I'm answering her letter." Angela seemed to find his surprise incredibly stupid. It had never occurred once to him to do what Angela was doing. She scripted the date, the opening and then hesitated, looking back up at her audience. Cam had come in quietly, leaning against the doorframe, arms and legs crossed around her, the letter carefully tucked up under one arm, still unfolded. Her face was dry but her eyes were puffy.

Angela paused slightly, before she carefully folded up her unfinished blank page of a letter and put it back into the envelope titled letter to an opposite as an answer. She tucked it, and Brennan's letter to her without Booth's permission, into her purse. She swung it up onto her shoulder. She stopped, leaning slightly on her fingers on the tabletop, the congealing remains of waffles mixing strangely sweet in Booth's swampy sorrow.

"She won't work any cases with you for a while," Angela said quietly and moved towards the door. Cam cleared her throat and Angela paused, her pity extending to her friend enough to hug her. Over Angela's shoulder, Cam's eyes met Booth's and Booth knew she was accepting the hug from him now.

"Why didn't you stop?" Cam asked. "Like I did?" Booth swallowed, the million dollar question on his tongue. He told the truth.

"I wanted to know every part of her. Reading these letters I learned _every_ part of her. Who she was, who she is, her family and her heartache. The selfish part and the best parts. She…she's my best friend. I just wanted to...to know her." Angela tilted her head quietly, letting go of Cam. The two now in on his secret had gleaned some understanding. Angela still asked.

""The more important question is, why did you do it? Why did you read them?"

A thousand things to say ran through his mind. He said the simplest, the most pure unfettered form and it felt so good to finally say aloud. His purpose now was clear, and his previous confusion about their relationship had been burned away by the confrontation and the anger, leaving only a gentle understanding, a deep sorrow and a lot of hope. He needed to fix it; he finally knew how.

"Because I love her."

They both turned to go, Angela to her car and beyond, somewhere to finish her letter, and Cam to walk her out the door, and perhaps do the same here.

"What are you going to do with the letter you write to her?" Booth called desperately. Angela turned around, a half smile on her face. She tossed her hair.

"Why, I'm putting it back in the letterbox of course."

* * *

The End.

_To be continued._

* * *

**I ended here because this is a good ending in a lot of ways (except of course, happy satisfaction.) It resolves the conflict – Brennan found out about the letters, and it gives Booth an entire arch of redemption for which to strive. I asked everyone whether it should be one story or two, but I realized I wanted more of Brennan, and more of Booth. And I didn't want only their perspectives, but everyone's. So the next story will be the dichotomy; Brennan will be the narrator, Booth the postman, and the authors of the letters are the answers to Brennan's unanswered life. I hope you all enjoyed; this story was a joy and a pleasure to write, cathartic and sweet. At times I endlessly amused myself, and at others I prevaricated if perhaps I was putting too much emotion into a simple fanfiction. I hope everyone who fell in love with the story as much as I did will follow into the sequel. All the best.**

**K. **


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